Alive till Tomorrow
by circleofstars
Summary: After Freak Nation is established, nothing is certain. Max and Alec struggle to repair what's broken and lead their people forward. When a mission goes awry and no escape seems possible, they come to a revelation which surprises nobody but themselves.
1. Chapter 1

**Alive 'till Tomorrow**

**(1)**

The denizens of Terminal City drifted off the rooftop one by one, leaving an uncomfortable feeling of anticipation and uncertainty in the cold air. Max and Logan remained, off to one side and wrapped in their own rose-tinted fantasy, clasping gloved hands, but Alec pointedly ignored them, assuming that Max no longer needed him to keep up the ugly charade she had caught him in. Instead, he walked stiffly to join Joshua, who was watching his new flag snapping in the wind.

'Nice flag, buddy,' he said softly by way of greeting.

Joshua smiled at him self-consciously. 'Everything gonna be different now,' he rumbled apprehensively.

'Yeah, I guess so.'

'Will be alright,' Joshua added, nodding assertively.

'Yeah? Glad you're so sure, big guy.'

'Freaks gotta stick together… Joshua, Alec and Max will look after each other.'

'Looks like Max has got Logan again…' It seemed too self-indulgent to add _she doesn't need me anymore, _so Alec left it unsaid, but Joshua heard it anyway.

Joshua had his own suspicions about the complicated nature of the feelings linking Max to Logan and to Alec, but he wasn't prepared to confess all his deductions to his friend, so he was silent for a moment. In the end, he quietly said 'Logan's not a freak.'

Alec smirked. 'Not our kind of freak anyway,' he murmured spitefully. Joshua frowned, too innocent to appreciate the X5's sentiment.

After a short pause, the transhuman turned suddenly to study his friend, wearing a critical expression. 'How's your shoulder?'

'Alright,' Alec replied automatically. In fact, it was uncomfortably numb and hanging limp at his side.

'Alec,' Joshua reproached him. 'Here…' He laid a hand on Alec's uninjured shoulder and steered him towards the stairs. The X5 looked pale and exhausted in the stark morning light: there were grey shadows under his eyes.

'I'll be fine,' he protested. 'Genetically empowered, remember?'

'Not unbreakable,' Joshua told him sternly. 'No use with one arm.'

'I like to think I'm still _some_ use,' Alec complained, allowing himself to be led along a dingy corridor towards Joshua's quarters.

'Familiar bitch nearly beat Alec,' the dog-man pointed out gently.

'I'm never gonna live that down, huh?'

Joshua frowned again. He felt guilty for failing to notice Alec's handicap at the time – avenging Annie wasn't worth losing another friend. In every way that mattered, Max and Alec were his family.

'Take off jacket,' he instructed, pushing Alec down onto the couch. The X5 smiled wearily, touched by Joshua's concern. The dog-man disappeared in search of supplies, and Alec slipped his jacket off his good arm, but stopped abruptly when his movement shattered the reassuring numbness which had paralysed his left shoulder several hours previously.

Joshua returned to find his friend white faced and trembling, his jacket half-on, half-off. 'Alec?'

Alec hissed, his eyes snapping open. 'Sorry, I…' He trailed off.

'Jacket?' Joshua prompted gently.

'I… ah…' Alec squirmed under his friend's worried scrutiny. 'I can't move my arm,' he admitted.

Joshua's eyes went wide. He struggled with indecision for a few seconds and then abruptly spoke. 'I'll get Max.'

'Josh, no-,' Alec protested, but Joshua ignored him and was gone. Max was the last person Alec wanted to see right now; weakened, he didn't feel armed against her sarcasm and her anger. And he wanted to be up to full arguing strength, after…

- - - - - - - -

Max was still on the rooftop, watching Seattle waking up and preparing for the day, with Logan at her side. The early breeze stung her face, and Logan's fingers felt heavy entwined with hers. Outside the perimeter of Terminal City, ominous activity was bustling about. The thought of it, and of having to face it, made her head throb painfully.

Joshua felt shy about interrupting Max while she was with Logan, but he was afraid for Alec.

'Max…' he began hesitantly.

She turned, releasing Logan's warm hand at last, and smiled at her friend. 'Hey, Big fella. Great job with the flag.'

He grunted his thanks, and caught her arm urgently.

'You ok, Big fella?'

He nodded. 'Alec…' he stammered.

He watched her eyebrows draw together, though whether in concern, or irritation, or some other emotion, he couldn't tell.

'He was here two minutes ago,' Max said lightly. 'Surely even Alec can't get into trouble in that time.'

'Shoulder…'

Her frown deepened, and she shot a nervous glance over her shoulder at Logan. 'He said it was fine.'

Joshua shrugged, as if to say_ well, you know Alec. _She sighed. 'Yeah, okay.'

- - - - - - - -

Alec gaped helplessly at the door, slamming shut behind Joshua. _Shit. _For a second, he considered following, but dizziness overtook him and he dismissed the idea of trying to get up. He didn't want Max to find him sprawled flat on his face. Had to cling to the remnants of his pride.

He clutched absently at his shoulder with his opposite hand – the other lay limp in his lap. The wound was throbbing hotly under his fingers, shooting tremulous pangs up and down his arm, keeping time with his rapid pulse.

It was a pathetic wound, really – this, if truth be told, was what bothered Alec most. After all, he'd brushed off similar wounds before with barely a thought; he didn't want Max thinking of him as weak, didn't want the label _defective_ thrown at him again as it had been years before after the Berrisford assignment.

He wanted to lie alone in the dark until the pain stopped. Though grateful for Joshua's concern, he really didn't want to see the dog-man right now. And he definitely didn't want to see Max, and- he groaned as three sets of footsteps tapped along the corridor outside- he really, _really _didn't want to see Logan.

He sat upright, swaying slightly and still clinging to his shoulder automatically, without realising that he was doing so. He listened fatalistically to the approaching footsteps. Max, light and confident, long strides. Joshua, heavier, shuffling slightly – he always walked slightly hunched, as though apologising for his height. Logan walked with an awkward, clipped rhythm thanks to his exoskeleton.

- - - - - - - -

Max followed Joshua into the dimly lit room. Alec sat perched awkwardly on the edge of the couch. He snatched his right hand guiltily away from his shoulder when they entered, flicking up sullen eyes to acknowledge her arrival and favouring Joshua with a wan smile. Ignoring Logan completely when he followed her through the door. Alec's jacket, she noticed, hung dejectedly off one shoulder.

'What's up, Alec?' she asked. Joshua frowned at her impatient tone, and she immediately felt guilty. 'Is your shoulder okay?'

He glared at her, and sighed in exasperation.

'Whatever happened to "been there, done that"?'

'I was busy.'

'I'm sure there's a whole lot of other things you could be doing _now_ to keep yourself occupied.'

'I'm prioritising,' she told him, feeling Joshua's eyes on her and making a valiant effort to keep her temper.

'I'm flattered. Now go away.'

Behind her, Logan drew himself up defensively and began, 'Listen, Alec-.'

'Joshua thinks you need help,' Max cut across him, staring Alec down with determined eyes.

'I'll be fine.'

'Stakes are higher now. I need you sharp.'

'Hah. I'm touched.'

'I don't give a damn if you want to play with your own life, Alec, but-.'

'Oh, come on. Can you say "drama queen"?'

'Can you say "self-centred, macho idiot who really needs to learn that he's not invincible"?'

'Not without drawing a breath. You got me there.'

She stopped abruptly, swallowing the rest of her tirade, and met his eyes. After a charged second, her glare dissolved, and they both laughed.

'Manticore lung capacity, for yelling at Alec. You just discover a new super-power every day, huh, Maxie?'

She grinned sheepishly. For a moment neither spoke. 'Let me look at that, okay?' she asked eventually, and he nodded.

Logan, observing, turned his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. One minute they were ready to tear each other's heads off; the next laughing… he was amazed that Max had ever hoped to convince him that she and Alec were a couple. He glanced at Joshua. The dog-man wore a knowing smile which, for no reason at all, made Logan feel uncomfortable.

'Why're you wearing half a jacket, anyway?' Max asked, to distract Alec as she carefully eased it free of his sore shoulder.

'Fashion statement. You think it'll catch on?'

'The same day it becomes cool to have a barcode.'

'It's totally cool to have a barcode. Sorry, Josh.'

Joshua grinned.

'Gem's baby doesn't have one,' Max remembered, smiling to herself.

Alec nodded. 'Second generation barcodes would be too freaky, even for Manticore.'

'I don't think there's any limit to the freakiness of Manticore.' Max shuddered.

Alec laughed. 'If you and I are ever on a bar quiz team -,' he paused to wince as Max pulled his jacket free – 'we're calling it "the freakiness of Manticore".'

'That's exactly the sort of name you _would_ come up with,' she told him, trying to peel back his t-shirt. 'Joshua, you got any scissors?'

'Hey, you said it first. And I like this t-shirt,' Alec protested, as Joshua grunted and began clattering through draws.

'I'll buy you a new one,' Max grated out.

'No offence, Max, but there's no way I'd trust you to buy my clothes.'

She blinked at him, affronted. 'What is _that_ supposed to mean?'

His face was blank and innocent in a second. 'Nothing.'

'_What?_'

'Huh? Nothing, just forget I said anything…'

'He's teasing you, Max,' Logan put in softly. He'd settled in the armchair opposite, observing. Both X5s turned in surprise to look at him. The laughter faded from Max's eyes and she nodded her acknowledgement, smiling tightly. Alec was carefully expressionless.

'Scissors!' said Joshua triumphantly, presenting his find to Max. Alec looked up at him miserably.

'You're supposed to be on my side,' he complained, watching resignedly as Max deftly destroyed his t-shirt.

'Max, Alec and Joshua always on the same side,' Joshua told him, with conviction. Logan felt a pang at his exclusion, but neither of the others seemed to notice.

'Doesn't give her a free reign to sabotage my clothing whenever the mood takes her,' Alec grumbled.

Max hissed in sympathy as she pulled Dalton's makeshift dressing back and revealed the messy wound. 'Ouch. Why didn't you say something?'

'You were busy,' he deadpanned, throwing her own words back at her.

'Ouch,' she repeated. 'Okay, Big fella… uh, warm water, bandages, antiseptic if you've got it…?'

Joshua shook his head.

'Luke might have some. Logan, could you…?'

Logan was irritated at being dispatched on an errand so casually, but couldn't bring himself to refuse under the concentrated gazes of the three transgenics.

'Sure,' he said abruptly, standing up.

'Will they listen to Logan in the command centre…?' Alec began, recalling Mole's distrust of the 'ordinary'. Max blinked her understanding and turned to Logan's retreating back.

'Tell them it's for Alec,' she said simply.

The words were discordant in Logan's ears.

The door slammed a little harder than was strictly necessary, and the decisive crash echoed into a brief silence. With great effort Alec swallowed all the comments which had been on the tip of his tongue – there had been something new in the way Max had spoken about him just then, and he didn't want to shatter the moment by embarrassing her or pissing her off.

Joshua set a bowl of water down beside the couch, along with an armful of bandages which looked like the remnants of a torn up bed sheet. 'Thanks, Big fella,' Max murmured, glancing up from her study of Alec's shoulder.

Alec shot a questioning look at her, and she nodded. 'Good news, or bad news?'

'Does there have to be both?'

She shrugged.

'Good news.'

'There's not still a bullet in you.'

Alec nodded wearily. 'Yippee for me.'

'Bad news?' she offered tentatively.

'Yeah, alright. Hit me.'

'Well, it went in at an angle like _this-_,' she pointed, '-towards your neck, you can see from the shape of the wound. But the exit wound is here, so it changed direction – ricocheted off something.'

'Something?'

'Probably your collar bone.'

He nodded miserably. 'Nice.'

'There's a chip of bone in the exit wound,' she continued resolutely.

He grunted resignedly, without changing his expression.

'And the damage to the bone is probably what's making it difficult to move your arm.'

'Fantastic.'

'More friction, or something.'

'Great. I couldn't just get a simple bullet wound. My luck sucks.'

'I hear you. But I guess there's probably no such thing as a simple bullet wound.'

He looked at her pitifully, pushing out his bottom lip and fixing her in wide, mournful eyes. She laughed.

'Aww, poor Alec. Come on, it could be worse. Gem had to give birth to a baby.'

Alec favoured her with a flat look, then met Joshua's eyes. 'Thinks she's so funny,' he said, tipping his head towards the other X5.

Joshua snickered. 'Food?' he suggested, and grinned at the other two's vigorous nods, crossing the room to his makeshift kitchen.

'You know – that chip of bone's gonna have to come out,' Max said casually, extracting a pair of tweezers from the first aid supplies Joshua had gathered.

Alec raised his good arm in defence as she waved the tweezers playfully in his face. 'Whoa – no amateur surgery until we got antiseptic. I could catch something.'

Max grinned, flashing back to their first meeting. 'You've been out here in filth and degradation for a while now, Alec,' she reminded him softly.

He smiled, nodded, then cast a wary sideways glance at her hand, which still wielded tweezers. 'All the same…'

After a moment, Max picked up a rag, soaked it and started mopping at the sticky blood which had dried onto Alec's shoulder and arm. Alec winced at her touch, but said nothing.

Max reflected on her actions over the last year, and how they'd ultimately led her to this. She'd brought hundreds of transgenics out into what Alec had once termed 'filth and degradation'. All of what was happening now was her responsibility.

'How'd we end up so screwed?' she wondered aloud.

Alec turned his head sharply to meet her eyes, and was surprised by the vulnerability he saw there. 'Hey – what happened to all your rhetoric, huh?' He tipped his head toward the centre of Terminal City. 'They all believe you can get them through this.'

She nodded, looking down at her hands. It seemed appropriate that they had blood on them. She bit her lip, and met his eyes again. 'I'm just one person, Alec.'

Joshua looked up from his cooking. 'No, you're not,' he said, softly but fiercely.

Max shook her head. 'Yeah, yeah… highly trained, genetically engineered killing machine, yada, yada, yada… But I'm just _one- .'_

'_No,'_ Alec interrupted her, nodding deliberately at himself and Joshua. 'You're not.'

Max closed her mouth, startled into silence. Then she nodded, hesitantly seeking out the eyes of her two transgenic companions and finding them determined and unafraid. _Together then…_

A comfortable silence fell over them, broken only when Logan returned, exo-skeleton whirring loudly, bearing a half-full bottle of rubbing alcohol, which he handed wordlessly to Max.

She smiled at him, and quietly offered her thanks, but Logan was already leaving. 'I'm gonna help Dix out with the computer systems, Max, if you don't need me…'

She nodded gratefully. 'Thank you.' She nudged Alec, and he belatedly remembered his manners, muttering his thanks to Logan.

'Hungry?' Joshua asked earnestly, before the 'ordinary' could leave.

'Not right now, Big fella,' Logan replied, smiling tightly as he left the room.

Alec looked at the anti-septic bottle, and winced in anticipation. It was heavily concentrated, and, hell, it would hurt. He watched the liquid soak ominously into the rag in Max's hand, grimacing as his nose caught its sharp scent.

Max met Alec's eyes, communicating a mixture of warning and premature apology. He made a face and nodded, and she gently pressed the rag against the hole in his shoulder. Alec bit down hard on his lip, screwing his eyes up – Max watched the cords of the muscles in his arm stand out in tension.

'Scream,' she told him, 'it'll help.'

He let out a wordless, deep-throated yell, and she quickly snatched the tweezers from the bowl of diluted antiseptic, locked them tightly on the visible creamy coloured end of the shard of bone and pulled, hard. Alec's exclamation ended in a sharp gasp, and he slumped, several shades paler than before. Max dropped the tweezers and bone to reach forward and support her comrade as the shock hit him. In a second, Joshua was there to ease Alec back into the couch, where he lay with eyes lightly closed, trembling and taking sharp, shallow gasps through gritted teeth. Frowning in sympathy, Max soaked a strip of bandage in the heavily diluted alcohol and pressed the cool cloth against his wound, soaking up the trickle of blood which had been dislodged by her removal of the bone chip.

'Alec?'

He nodded, then opened his eyes a crack. 'Yeah… I'm okay,' he croaked.

'Hard part's over.'

'I bet you say that… to all the guys.'

She shook her head affectionately. 'Shut up.'

'Scotch?' Joshua suggested earnestly.

Alec's eyes snapped fully open. 'You've got Scotch?' he asked; Max laughed at his enthusiasm.

Joshua nodded. 'Mole got it. Would it help?'

'Hell, yes,' Alec told him, at the same time that Max said 'Only a tiny bit.' Alec pulled a face at her.

Three glasses and seven stitches later, Joshua was serving macaroni and cheese – sadly bereft of sausages due to TC supply shortages. Alec, bandaged and exhausted, was at least looking less ghostly, and received the food gratefully, but Max picked distractedly at hers as the magnitude of the task she'd taken on again began to weigh her down.

'Not enough cheese?' Joshua asked, breaking her reverie.

'Huh? No, there's _plenty_ of cheese,' she replied, startled.

'Too much?'

'It's perfect, Big fella.'

'Max, what is it?' Alec asked quietly, carefully settling his fork on the table and looking up at her.

She smiled wryly. 'Where shall I start? There's the police, and the army, and the Breeding Cult. And then, there's the public, who want us all crucified. And the food shortage, and sorting out space for everyone… water, electricity, weapons, ammo, medical supplies…'

'Nobody expects you to deal with all that on your own.'

'I know… there's just so much…'

'Look – we're alive today. We'll try to stay alive till tomorrow, and then take it one day at a time. Claw our way back to sanity.'

'I can't imagine what sanity would feel like. We've been so far from it for so long.'

'Don't think I've ever been there. Might be boring,' Alec said flippantly.

'Ordinary,' Joshua put in, thoughtfully.

Alec nodded, exhibiting the beginnings of a smirk. 'No nightlife, no cat burglary… no lizard people and cartoon snake-worshipping villains. You wouldn't want life to be boring, would you, Maxie?'

'I would _love_ for life to be boring,' she said feelingly.

He raised an eyebrow. 'Really? Living in a penthouse and eating pasta and "Hi honey, how was your day?"' If she heard the bite in his words, she didn't acknowledge it; just sniffed and nodded.

'Maybe you're right,' she whispered.

'We're not designed for that,' he added, still quieter.

She didn't disagree, and Alec wondered whether, at last, she understood.

- - - - - - - - - - -

_I'd like to continue this, but won't have the time for a while. So, watch this space, but don't hold your breath! I hope you enjoyed this; as always, I love hearing your views._


	2. Chapter 2

**Alive 'till Tomorrow**

**(2)**

The sun rose the following morning and cast Terminal City in a new vividness, startling the inhabitants out of the state of suspended animation which they had lived in during the triumph, reflections and reparations of Freak Nation's first day of existence. Alec walked stiffly to the command centre with a dark feeling of dread – as though yesterday had dissolved away and now it was time to deal with the consequences of their actions.

Max was leaning against a desk, looking harassed, with Logan looming at her shoulder like a bodyguard, grim-faced. Dix and Luke lounged in chairs in front of the computer terminals, but there was a certain awkwardness in their posture which belied their apparent nonchalance. Joshua stood hunched by the door; Mole, vigilant by the window, observing the activities of the police and picketers around the perimeter.

Alec joined Joshua and leaned on the wall, touching a hand self-consciously to his shoulder.

'How you feeling?' Joshua asked him in a low voice.

Alec shrugged, pursing his lips. 'Meh,' he replied inarticulately. 'Worse than wonderful, better than dead.' Joshua frowned, and Alec swatted playfully at the dog-man's shoulder with his free arm. 'I'm good, dude.'

Max met Alec's eyes, looking the same question at him; he nodded and shrugged. Logan's gaze settled on her and she blinked away from Alec, shaking her head as though to clear it. She offered Logan a tight smile.

She glanced around the room; Alec was surprised by how hesitant she seemed – usually, she had no problem telling everyone what to do. It was different now, though. It _felt_ different. The stakes were higher.

'Okay, everyone listen up,' she said eventually, stepping forward. 'We've set ourselves up in this position, and we can't go back… if we're going to stay safe, stay free, we've got to sort a few things out. It seems like we're a long way from okay right now, but I think we just need to work out our priorities and deal with them one at a time.'

Alec nodded, carefully watching the others for their reactions.

'Well, I hope you don't get so busy with priority number one that you don't notice when priority number three bombs you to smithereens,' Mole growled. 

'I would suggest that we avoid that by making the enemy with the most firepower our first priority,' Logan replied calmly.

'No way, man,' Alec contradicted him. 'What exactly can we do to _deal with_ the US Military, huh? We start with the issues we can actually resolve, or we'll start a battle and lose it in six days because we have no food or water.'

'Or Tryptophan,' OC put in with quiet authority. Alec glanced around and smiled briefly at her. She was leaning against the wall in a corner. It was unlike her to fade into the background, but judging by the others' reactions, Alec wasn't the only one who hadn't noticed her. 

Mole shot a scornful glance at Cindy, and turned on Max. 'Future of Freak Nation up to the ordinaries now, is it?'

She pointedly ignored him. 'Tryptophan?' she asked her friend, wondering what had prompted her intervention.

'I been helpin' Gem; she's all washed out from havin' her baby….'

'She's got the shakes?' Alec asked sharply. That was all they needed.

'Not so bad yet, but she ain't gonna improve without she gets her meds.'

Mole twisted his leathery lips into a snarl. 'I don't think that qualifies as our biggest problem right now.'

'It'll be a problem when Max and Alec are down too and you got the government tearin' down the gate,' Cindy pointed out quietly.

'Are you short of Tryptophan?' Logan murmured to Max, concern beginning to show in his cold blue eyes.

Max squirmed guiltily. 'I've had a lot on my mind…' She looked at Alec, who shrugged and shook his head. 'Luke, what about the rest of the X series here…'

'Some of them were talking about looking for a supplier. I think they had some on them when they got here, but…'

'There isn't any…?'

He shook his head grimly. 

'I guess we should make that a priority then,' Logan put in wryly. Alec half expected him to make a note of this rather obvious revelation. 

'Max and I usually stock up in a doctor's office in sector eight,' Alec suggested. 'I could pick some up, and try to gather some of the other medical supplies we need.'

Joshua made a small, nervous sound of protest at the notion of Alec going out alone.

Logan sighed doubtfully. 'You need to get the transgenics recognised as a legitimate community, I don't think petty theft is really conducive to…'

'Petty? Long term ideals are one thing, Logan but right now Gem's got a new baby to deal with, and that's not so easy with a migraine and uncontrollable muscle spasms.' 

'Interesting that you're already setting up the X-series as an elite; top of the priority list and all…' Mole growled sarcastically.

'It's a problem we got to resolve, Mole; nothing to do with priorities or elites…' Max interjected angrily.

'_Your_ problem!'

'_All_ of our problem, if we don't solve it now; we look after our own.'

'Yeah, _X5_-452, you look after _your _own.'

Logan shouted angrily at Mole, his words and Max's drowning one another out. Luke and Dix were sullenly silent, half-agreeing with each. Mole added his vociferous objections to the cacophony. 

'Quit it!' Alec yelled, stepping decisively between Mole and Max. He faced the lizard-man and went on quietly. 'We've definitely got enough problems without you making a rift between X-series and transhumans. Put your issues on hold till we've got time for them. What we know for sure is, there's not enough fire-power here to hold out against any of our enemies if all the X5s are down, and we _need_ medical supplies to survive here. So why don't you see what you can do about food and ammo, and I'll sort out the Tryptophan.'

Max was utterly taken aback by the authority in his voice. She stared at him; he turned around and realised that her eyes were on him, smirked and shrugged, backing out of the limelight. 

After a brief, startled silence, Max continued the meeting with apparently renewed confidence, issuing instructions to all those present. About half an hour later, the various participants drifted off one by one to start work, leaving Max and Logan with Alec. The journalist sat down at the computer terminals, but well within earshot of their conversation.

'What are you gonna do, your highness?' Alec asked, grinning. 'Supervise your minions while they do your bidding?'

'Actually, I think one of my minions is particularly in need of supervision.'

Alec grimaced at her like a teenager instructed to tidy his bedroom. 

'Yeah, well, obviously, never was good at being a minion. Can't rely on me for anything.' He was only half-joking. 

She went to punch him playfully in the arm, but he noticed and jumped back in alarm. 'Oh! I'm so sorry, I forgot…' she gasped, snatching her hand back and then reaching out to gently touch his shoulder instead.

'How is it?' 

'Better, mostly.'

She winced, not believing him. There was a short, charged silence. 

'That's not true, you know… about you not being a good minion. I _do _rely on you. I'm not coming with you tonight because I don't trust you. I'm coming because I can't afford to lose you.'

'I…' He faltered into silence, touched by her honesty, but he recovered quickly, and smirked at her. 'I'm nobody's minion.' 

- - - - - - - - - 

Alec slipped soundlessly into the pharmacy, making short work of the complicated lock on the door. The narrow, cluttered room was several floors up from the main entrance to the City Hospital, far enough from the wards that the corridors were silent and unlit except for luminous fire regulation signs above the doors. 

Another day, they might have waltzed right through the door and depended on pure nerve to get them in and out unchallenged. But now, they were famous. Both of their faces had been plastered all over the news since the Jam Pony siege, along with public helpline numbers to call upon sightings of either of the 'dangerous fugitives'. And now, too, they had more than just themselves to think about. Gem and her baby, and all the other inhabitants of Terminal City too, in the long run, were relying on them to finish the job. 

So, this time, they'd come in from a less expected route – using ropes to climb precariously over from the next-door building; ropes which were also their only way out without negotiating a security labyrinth through six floors below. Max was hovering in the disused operating theatre they'd arrived into, guarding the ropes and gathering bandages and suture equipment into her rucksack. If they were lucky, Alec could be back to her in minutes with the Tryptophan and other essential drugs, and they could be gone before anyone downstairs had batted an eyelid. That was the plan, anyway. 

The number of times these escapades had gone according to plan as opposed to the number of times they hadn't wasn't really something Alec wanted to think about at that point. He tried to think about encouraging, positive things like junk food and television. 

Tryptophan wasn't difficult to locate, thanks to the meticulous alphabetical system ordering the medicines. _A victory chalked up to obsessive compulsive disorder…_ Alec thought wryly, carefully stashing the drug, along with precisely selected antibiotics and painkillers, in the bottom of his duffel bag. Reasoning that it might be a while before the transgenics could _buy_ the drug they so desperately needed, and unsure of what benefit Tryptophan had for ordinary humans, Alec cleared out the hospital's entire stock. He was careful to leave enough of the other drugs to keep the hospital running until they could restock, though: Max wouldn't like it if she thought they'd jeopardised the health of the patients. Alec was feeling kind of proud of his own virtue as he left the pharmacy and ghosted back through the silent corridors. The warm, fuzzy feeling evaporated when he heard voices drifting out of the room where he'd left Max. He crept close to the door and disappeared as effectively as he could.

Max was standing sullenly by the window, shielding the ropes and her bag from view with her body. Two security guards had guns trained on her, and they were trembling. Meaning they knew who, or rather what, she was. 

'I think you should call that number…'one of them hypothesised uncertainly. A flash of panic crossed Max's face. It had never really occurred to her to wonder who was on the other end of that line. It could be Clemente. But it could just as easily be White.

Alec hovered uncertainly in the doorway, trying to communicate his presence to Max without making himself known to either of her indecisive captors. He could see the tension behind her eyes as she turned over possibilities frantically, constantly vigilant for an opening in which to make her move. Her eyes met his for a split second, and her�gaze flickered away without any sign of recognition. She started tapping her fingers agitatedly against her arm, apparently unable to contain her frustration. Alec knew better: his trained eyes picked up Morse code in her superficially irregular tapping. _Stay there; wait for me to move…_

He rolled his eyes – unnecessarily, as she wasn't looking, but needing to acknowledge her unreasonable bossiness to himself. The security guards, meanwhile, had decided to call the public helpline number, feeling themselves ill-equipped to deal with one of the Superfreaks they had heard so many unlikely and disturbing stories about in recent weeks. They hesitated because neither one, surprisingly, carried a cell phone: despite their relative luxury status post-Pulse, Alec would have expected any serious security agency to equip its employees with means of communication. Although reluctant to leave Max with only one supervisor while the other went to the office at the end of the hall to make the call, they were too afraid of her to attempt anything without calling backup first. The taller, red-headed one took a few steps toward the door, on the far side of the room from where Alec lurked. Halfway there, he looked nervously back at his companion.

'Will you be okay with her on your own…? I've heard they can…'

Alec was interested to find out what the ginger lapdog had heard he could do, but was disappointed. The shorter guard cut his friend off, nodding decisively despite the beads of sweat adorning his frightened, vaguely Hispanic features. 

'I won't take my eyes off her – or my gun, either.' He took a threatening step closer to Max, affirming his words with a firm jerk of his firearm. She raised her eyebrows and pursed her lips at him as though coldly unimpressed by some pick-up line. Alec smirked to himself. 

Ginger disappeared through the door, and Shorty gestured at Max urgently with his gun. 

'Don't try anything.'

She smiled sweetly at him. Alec had seen that look before. It was superficially sweet, but it had a feral edge to it. It seemed to unnerve the security guard. 'I wouldn't do anything to you…' Max told him, all syrupy voice and big, liquid eyes. Alec grimaced at her, knowing she could see his expression in her peripheral vision. 

'Don't talk to me, either. I know all about you freaks and your unnatural abilities…'

Max frowned, and Alec, again, found himself wondering exactly how embellished their reputation had become. 

'Sit on the floor,' he instructed her, his voice trembling with feigned authority. 

She began to move to obey, and as she moved she flashed at Alec the hand-signal meaning 'Now!' Alec, not entirely certain what he was expected to do 'now', improvised, creating an effective diversion by leaping out of his hiding place and�exclaiming 'Boo!' Shorty spun wildly and fired, missing Alec by a clear three feet, giving Max the split-second's grace she needed to seize him from behind and disarm him, tossing the gun to Alec, and then neatly knock him out cold. 

Alec raised an eyebrow at her across Shorty's crumpled form. 'Jesus, Max, I leave you on your own for a _minute_…'

She twisted her lips into something half smirk and half snarl. 'Shut up,' she replied mildly. 

The smirk froze on her face when the shot rang out.

- - - - - - - - 

_I'm so sorry! There's no excuse for the kind of neglect that I'm guilty of with this story... I posted Chapter One in my first week of Uni, and since then I have literally had no time! On the plus side, I'm not too busy for the next few weeks, so I hope I'll be able to get a third chapter up within a month or so... If anyone's dedicated enough to have waited for this, thanks a lot for reading! I imagine this will work out around 5 chapters; that's a rough estimate. Thank you; until next time... x_


	3. Chapter 3

Alive till Tomorrow

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(3)**

For a suffocating, confused instant, Max tensed against expected pain, searched her body with her eyes for a blossoming crimson explosion. Something hit her and she stumbled back, falling back on her ass with a bruising impact. It hadn't been a bullet that knocked her over, though. She blinked the shock out of her eyes determinedly, and realised that there was a warm, heavy, squirming weight in her lap. She scrubbed her hands across her eyes to clear her head; she couldn't understand why her head was spinning, usually she was good in a crisis. Taking a deep breath, she looked down to identify the bundle in her arms.

Glutinous time sped up – suddenly images were flashing past her like a movie in fast-forward. She looked down, saw the dark blonde head moving weakly, the sprawled arms tangled up with her legs, the blood stain on the floor. Looked up, saw the gun still pointed and the startled face of a man who had only half-expected his weapon to function as it had.

The resonance of the shot was still in the air, though maybe only to her sensitive ears. Seconds had passed.

Then she was moving: out from under the body sprawled over her, to her feet and forwards, faster than a human eye could clearly see. Her limbs lashed out with brutal precision – one – two – three strikes, and before she'd stopped to think the gun, and it's owner, were on the floor beside the other security guard.

Max stood hunched and gasping in the newly established stillness, alone with the three bodies on the floor.

Then one of them moved.

She caught the twitch in her peripheral vision and spun, dropping into a crouch with her fists raised, uttering a wordless yell of aggression and challenge.

'Max…?'

With a groan, Alec rolled over onto his back. He winced, raised an exploratory hand to his side and choked out a noise halfway between a curse and a gag. 'Ahh… Jesus. What happened?'

'A-… Alec? Oh. I…' She raked her fingers into her hair and clenched her fists on top of her head, taking another shaky breath. 'Right. Shit. Okay…' She knelt beside him and assessed the damage. There was a bloody hole low on his right side, far enough over that it shouldn't have eviscerated his internal organs too thoroughly, but bleeding fast. She pressed her hands over it mercilessly, and he grunted involuntarily, low in his throat.

'So, uh… the other guy got back early and shot you in the back. You fell on me, then I got up and knocked him out…'

'How'd he get the drop on us? We should have heard him coming.'

'I think you were in the middle of some snarky comment. Idiot.' She said it softly, meeting his eyes to take the edge off the rebuke.

He squirmed under her hands and winced. 'Ouch. Well, that'll teach me.'

'Take a lot more than that to make you change your ways.'

'Sounds like you're speaking from experience there, Max.'

'We both know I am.' She paused, grimacing at the sight of his blood on her hands as though it pained her to see it, deep inside. 'You have changed, though…' she continued quietly. 'I think we both have. A lot of things… feel… different - now.'

He frowned, struggling to comprehend her cryptic remark through the high-pitched buzzing which was filling his ears. His eyes looked glazed, like a drunkard's. 'You'll have to run that by me again when my brain's working, Max,' he admitted.

She looked disappointed, but nodded, blinking. Suddenly she was embarrassed by their closeness, and the very real need for action provided a good excuse to break the moment.

'We need to get out of here. He called for back up.'

'Yeah, and those two chuckleheads'll be out for your blood when they wake up with a bitch of a headache.'

Max smiled wryly. Then the practical details occurred to her and she remembered the precarious way they had entered the building – the exit they had intended would require strength, agility and endurance, and Alec, well…

Alec was struggling to get his elbows under himself to lift his head off the ground.

'Shit… okay, well, we're going to have to head for the lift and go out through the delivery entrance… Maybe you could pose as a patient if the worst comes to the worst…'

'Remember we're famous, Max… Damn, Mole's gonna have a friggin' field day when he finds out how royally we screwed up this assignment.'

'Sshhh…' she said; he grimaced at her patronising tone and she amended it to 'Shut up. I'm gonna pick up our bags, and then I'll help you stand up…'

'Don't-,' he began urgently when she started to move.

'What?'

He shook his head. 'Never mind. Irrational.' He'd closed up, drawing on old Manticore 'suck it up' impulses.

'Alec,' she rebuked him sternly.

'I just feel like… all my blood's just kept in by your hand there. Like the boy with his finger in the dyke. And if you move I'll, like… explode…'

She was startled by the rawness of his fear, and by his uncharacteristic honesty. 'You're not a time bomb, Alec,' she murmured.

'Hah…' His laugh sounded choked.

'Here…' she moved her hand slowly, allowing him to clasp his own hand over the wound. It was a fairly small hole, but it was still seeping blood steadily and so Max wanted to move fast, before Alec was too weak to help himself.

She snatched the two bags and slung both securely over her shoulder and head, then knelt behind Alec and supported him as he struggled to his feet. He winced, carefully evening out his breathing.

'Okay?' Max asked doubtfully, still gripping his elbow firmly with her fingers.

He sighed. 'Ah… yeah. Yeah.'

'You don't look so good…'

He put on a mock-scandalised expression. 'What are you saying, Max?'

She pursed her lips in exasperation and eyed him through her eyelashes. 'Shut up. Let's go.'

She set off at a fast walk, gripping his arm to prevent him toppling over, conscious of the awkward limp which had replaced his usual casual grace.

After a long, silent walk through eerie corridors and down two shadowy staircases, Alec croaked out a warning.

'Remember… we're expecting those reinforcements… at any moment…' he murmured. Max nodded tightly. She had been expecting them to leap out on her from every shadow.

'It could just be more of those inept security guards,' she suggested weakly. 'If we're lucky.'

'When are we _ever…_' he paused to cough 'lucky?'

'He dialled that public helpline that's been attached to my face on the news all week,' Max conceded. 'Most likely it's…'

'Our favourite person,' Alec finished the sentence for her grimly.

As though their conversation had called them, footsteps sounded further down the passage.

'Shit!' Max glanced around frantically. 'In here!' She pushed him through a door to their left, following and then spinning round to catch the door a second before it could slam loudly. She leaned against the door. They were in some kind of treatment room, ringed with cabinets and with a hard-looking bed in the centre. Alec had his hands flat on the bed, arms braced to keep him upright.

He met her eyes wearily, then unexpectedly snorted with laughter.

'What?' she hissed angrily.

He laughed, choked, winced and pressed a hand against his stomach protectively, still coughing. 'We're so friggin' incompetent.'

'Speak for yourself,' Max whispered, with her ear to the door.

He looked a question at her.

_They're outside_, she mouthed. One of the voices was infuriatingly familiar. 'He's like a rash…' she hissed, flipping the lock on the door.

'What was that?' asked one of the voices outside. The handle rattled violently.

Max eyes met Alec's, narrowed in a wince of self-reproach. _Idiot, _he mouthed at her. She glared at him. A heavy kick collided with the other side of the door, and it made an ominous splintering sound. Max eyes widened. _Shit!_ she mouthed, rushing across to open one of the cabinets at the side of the room. The first one she opened was full of bottled drugs, but the second was empty.

She seized Alec by the arm, hissing 'Hide!' as another crash resounded against the door. He let out a strangled gasp as she yanked him across the room, and she apologised in a panicked whisper. The cabinet was about three feet in height and depth, and maybe six in length – just barely space for the two of them to lie flat on their sides, facing away from the door, which Max pulled closed on its magnetic catch behind them just as the door to the room burst open.

Max snaked an arm around Alec's waist and pressed her hand over his on the wound in his stomach, squeezing it tightly and tensing her muscles in a desperate bid not to be found. Her face was pressed in his hair; she tried not breathe too loudly. The intimacy of the situation was intensely uncomfortable and somehow comforting at the same time. It was difficult to be stuck so close, movement so restricted, and so tense – and yet, his closeness was reassuring.

'Shh…' she whispered shakily in his ear, her voice covered by the sound of several pairs of boots tramping into the room. He was struggling to breathe without making any noise; despite his best efforts, the occasional gasp and wheeze sounded disastrously loud to her ears. Still, to her ears, her own and Alec's heartbeats sounded like the agitated thudding of two drums. Perhaps the duller senses of the Familiars and humans wouldn't find them.

'Where is she?' White's voice, angry and impatient.

'She was in the operating theatre two floors up… Liam had her covered but she attacked him…'

'She had an accomplice… a man-.'

'Or more likely a male… you know… freak.'

'I shot him, but she knocked me out. They were both gone when we came round, sir.'

'They don't seem to be in here…'

Max almost allowed herself to breathe again.

'This door was locked from the inside,' White's harsh voice grated out.

'But, sir… there isn't another exit…'

White growled wordlessly at the hapless security guard, and Max found herself wishing fervently that White were as stupid as her original captors.

She squeezed her eyes shut in horror as Alec let out a quiet gasp, struggling to pull air into his lungs. Max held her breath, every muscle tensed in anticipation. She felt Alec tense against her.

It seemed they hadn't heard.

'Could they have got out the window?' wondered Liam, out in the room.

Footsteps crossed the room to investigate.

'Either that or they're still in here somewhere…'

More footsteps, spreading out around the room.

'The cabinets, maybe…?' suggested the other guard. Max stifled a gasp, squeezing Alec even tighter against her in anticipation and fear. She heard the next cabinet along open.

'No… look, they're full of bottles – no space…'

The door slammed shut. She prayed – to nobody in particular, whether God existed or not, she wasn't his creature – that he wouldn't bother checking the other cabinets.

She realised suddenly how hard she was pressing against Alec's wound; but too late – helplessly, he let out an anguished whimper.

'What was that?' asked one of the men outside.

Max bit her lip as an intense, tangible silence followed. She could feel Alec trembling against her with the effort it was taking to stay silent. Hating it, but knowing it was the only option, she reached around him with both arms, one hand gently but firmly pressed against his wound, the other clamped securely over his mouth. She felt his lips against her palm and hoped that he could still breathe. The silence stretched on, building like a physical agony inside Max.

White broke the silence, and for a split second, she loved him. 'Stop wasting my time,' he snapped. 'If 452 and her _companion_ get away from me again, I'll personally take out my frustration on each of you.'

Frantic footsteps as the security guards redoubled their efforts in searching the room. After an eternal three minutes, one of the stopped, and sighed. 'You know… that door sticks sometimes, man. Maybe they were never in here at all.'

Max held her breath, suddenly feeling sickened by the dark walls pressing in around her and Alec. She sent up another directionless prayer, hoping they would leave.

She sensed White's fuming. 'Split up!' he barked, with barely contained rage. 'Find them!'

She listened to their footsteps receding and relaxed her hand finally, pulling it away from Alec's face. Then she realised – suddenly, like a brick in her stomach – that she couldn't feel his breath against her palm. Had she smothered him to death in her effort to keep them hidden? She couldn't help it. The choked, hoarse denial was past her lips before she could stop it, and all her terrible actions were for nothing.

'No!' she sobbed.

'Wait!' White commanded. 'There…'

She could feel his finger pointing at her as though a laser beam shot out of the end of his fingernail, across the room and through the plastic door straight into the back of her head.

Then his footsteps filled her ears, each one louder than the last, moving inevitably towards her.

_Thanks for reading! I'm going away for a week, but hopefully I'll be able to offer you Chapter Four by the middle of April. Hope you're still enjoying this! _


	4. Chapter 4

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(4)**

Max trembled against the appallingly still form in her arms. White's lazy, tapping footsteps were amplified impossibly in her ears like echoing drumbeats, beating out her doom. Like the drumming of an execution; her punishment for killing Alec. She thought of telling Joshua what had happened to his best friend, and it was too much for her to bear. Some survival instinct flipped a switch and she was in soldier-mode, emotions suddenly numb and distant.

White's footsteps were right outside the door of her cabinet hiding place. Expertly, she rolled to face the door, disentangling herself from Alec's heavy, limp limbs. She was coiled like a clockwork toy, senses alert like a hungry predator; the exact moment White's footsteps stopped, as he leaned down to open the door and find her –

-she was ready. Her feet sprung forwards into the door, which exploded open violently, smashing into White's nose with a sickly, satisfying _squelch_. He roared in pain and fury, blood spurting from his ruined nose, and her momentum carried her outwards like a Jack-in-the-Box. She landed on her feet and kept moving, unwilling to sacrifice any of the kinetic energy she had gathered. She spun, planting a kick on White's chest while he was still disoriented. He staggered backwards, caught at the table to correct his balance and snarled at her. She followed him step for step, raining blows on the Familiar too fast for him to gather his wits and retaliate.

In her peripheral vision she could see the others fumbling for guns. She seized White by his lapels, spun him around and threw him at his cronies with enough force to knock them all over. Then she flipped elegantly over the metal treatment table and, landing on her feet, launched the table towards her attackers. It skidded across the floor, hit White's feet and toppled over, collapsing onto the squirming heap of bodies. The metal edge bounced off White's forehead, and he was out cold.

Less than a minute had passed since her sob had alerted White to their presence. A moment of stillness fell over Max, once again the last one standing. She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, allowing _Max _to regain control; banishing _X5-452_ to the depths until she was next needed.

Max opened her eyes, blinking back tears which left slow, salty tracks down her cheeks. The two security guards were stirring, wriggling out from under White and the table. They straightened warily, watching her, reluctant to fight her and get beaten again, especially now that their zealous commander wouldn't know the difference.

'Is it really worth it?' Max asked them bitterly. 'You really want your heads bashed together over some medical supplies that this hospital can easily replace?'

They exchanged uncertain looks, and began to carefully back away from the enraged young woman.

'Go home to your mothers!' she snapped.

They fled.

Max was at Alec's side in seconds. It had been perhaps five minutes in total since he had stopped breathing – if she could get him to start again, there was still hope. Joshua's devastated face haunted her subconscious – she couldn't let this state of affairs pass, couldn't live with herself as the woman who had accidentally suffocated her injured friend.

She held him by the shoulders and gently dragged him out of the cabinet, careful to jostle him as little as possible as she laid him onto the hard floor.

She pressed her full lips to his and forced air into his inactive lungs – found herself wishing for more than one reason that he would respond to her kiss. Lifting her head to take a breath, she tried again, minutely aware of the softness of his lips against her own sensitive mouth. She felt a tiny, sudden movement and, despite her desperation to see him wake, she was almost reluctant to pull away.

She watched his face anxiously, holding her breath, and felt warm relief erupt inside her as he screwed up his eyes and tried to take a breath, then choked violently. She stroked his hair gently while he coughed. Just in time, she caught the look of alarm in his eyes and helped him roll over, held him while he threw up on the clinically clean floor. She rubbed his back while he suffered through a series of dry heaves after emptying his stomach, and finally caught him in her arms when he collapsed, exhausted, and took in an enormous, gasping breath.

'Alec? You okay…? I'm so sorry. But it's alright now. You're going to be alright.'

'Max?' he croaked.

She met his eyes, humble and contrite and needy and thoroughly unlike herself.

'You wanted to… kiss me… all you had to do was… ask.'

She laughed incredulously, though the sound was choked like a sob. Somehow, he always knew how to restore her balance. 'You big jerk. Don't ever scare me like that again.'

'Desperate measures,' he added, ignoring her. 'Half kill a guy and give him… mouth to mouth… just as an excuse for lip contact…'

Some impulse seized her, and before thought could intervene, her lips were on his again, she was hungry and desperate, filled with light, and he responded in kind, gently, but feelingly. Her tongue tasted the acid lingering on his lips, but she barely noticed. He seemed sweeter than anything she'd tasted in a while.

She finally pulled away, almost afraid to see his expression.

His eyes were surprised, but they were grateful, too. A sort of optimism had ignited in his hazel irises. Even alabaster-pale, with bruised eye-sockets and faint lines of pain, his face had never been more beautiful. She thought for a moment that he was crying, then realised that she was looking at her own tears, where they had fallen onto his cheeks.

She stared at him until suddenly overcome with embarrassment, then tried to construct an excuse frantically. She had just kissed Alec – completely spontaneously and boldly, as though she did it every day. What could she tell him? That she'd mistaken him for Logan in a moment of emotional overload? That she'd slipped and her lips just landed that way, so very conveniently placed? The exquisite look in his eyes told her none of those excuses were going to cut it. A warm, fluttery feeling inside her chest encouraged her to just leave it, let it stand as its own explanation. It would be a travesty to stifle that light in his eyes.

'Max…' he croaked, breaking into her thoughts. 'Not that I'm not… enjoying the moment… but, maybe we should get on with the… escaping thing.'

She twitched, startled. The longer she left the kiss as it was between them, the harder it would be to take it back. But Alec was right. The 'escaping thing' needed her attention more urgently.

'Right…'

She carefully got to her feet, propping Alec up against the wall, and stumbled over to where White was beginning to stir. She put a stop to his waking with a well-placed kick, then seized him by the shoulders and dragged him towards Alec. He watched her, confused and interested.

She awkwardly manoeuvred White's inert form to where Alec's had until recently lain, then knelt beside him, and, with a grunt of exertion and distaste, rolled him into the cabinet which had been their hiding place, their prison; almost, their coffin. She slammed the door, noticing that it had specks of White's blood drying onto it.

Alec raised an eyebrow. 'Wow, Max. Way to make an angry man… even angrier.'

She looked at the closed door, half-guilty, half-amused. 'Maybe it'll make him see the error of his ways,' she suggested sweetly.

Alec snorted. 'Yeah, right.'

She sighed, smiling crookedly. 'Yeah. Well.' She picked up the table, righted it, and pushed it in front of the door, securing White in his hiding place.

'I wouldn't want to be the poor schmuck who lets him out of there,' Max mused. 'He'll be spitting blood.'

'Literally, by the look of it. Seems like I missed a hell of a show.'

'I had the element of surprise in my favour,' she told him, grinning.

'You're a very… surprising… person…' he commented sleepily.

'Whoa-,' she said, lurching towards him and taking his face between her hands as his eyelids started to droop. 'No napping yet, hotshot. We still got escaping to do.'

He blinked, wincing, lifting himself out of a slumped position with a groan of effort. 'Yeah, alright. Present and correct. Orders, your Highness?'

'I'm gonna call Logan, see if he can pull up a building plan, find us a quick exit route.'

Alec let his head fall back against the wall with a thud. 'Oh, yeah, him,' he murmured absently. 'He's a… pretty useful guy.'

She dialled, ignoring him.

'I forgot about him…' Alec continued.

_So did I,_ Max thought. Aloud, she said 'Shut up Alec. Save your breath.'

Logan picked up, breathless. 'Max?' There was a strange edge to his voice.

'Logan? Listen, we ran into some complications. Alec's hurt. We need an escape route, fast.'

'I know. We thought something must be up when you were delayed coming back. I managed to hack into the CCTV feed from the hospital.'

Max's stomach felt icy. She blinked hard, and forced herself to keep her focus.

'Okay, what can you tell me about exit routes?' she pressed.

'It's not looking too good, Max. Those security guys raised an alarm… They've got more security and some sector police covering the ground floor exits, hoping to apprehend you on your way out.'

'Damn. Any way we can fly under their radar?'

'I'm thinking you'll have to fly _over_ it, Max.'

'What?'

'If you can get to the third floor, east side of the building, there's an easy jump from the window to the roof of an abandoned warehouse next door. I can get a friend to pick you up from outside the warehouse, bring you home to Terminal City. The window you need is two floors down from where you are and along a hallway. At the moment, there's nobody between you and there; they're all concentrated on the ground floor.'

'How far's the jump?' Max asked flatly, biting her lip and looking at Alec.

'Ten feet. No problem for an X5,' Logan told her, rather coldly.

Max stroked Alec's face absently. His eyes had drifted shut again, but he was breathing pretty evenly now, and his pulse, when she trailed a finger along the side of his throat, was slow but steady. He was barely bleeding any more. But still, he'd lost a lot of blood, and he'd been technically dead for a full five minutes. There was no way he could make the jump.

'Logan, we can't do that. Alec's hurt. He won't make the jump.' Alec's eyelashes flickered at the sound of his name, but he didn't open his eyes.

'Max – I'm sorry – I can't see any other way out.'

'What are you saying? Logan, we _can't make_ that way. No matter what the risks, you got to find us another option. What's our best chance?'

'Listen to me, Max – Terminal City _needs_ you. You can't afford to compromise your own safety. You've got to get out of there.'

'But-,' she interjected, frustrated with his failure to understand.

'I'm really sorry to say this, Max. But you have to leave Alec behind.'

'What?' she breathed. I can't… TC _needs_ him, Logan. As much as it needs me…'

'He's not exactly Mister Reliable, Max... Anyway, that's not the point. There's only one way out, and he can't make it.'

'Logan, I'm not leaving him here for White!'

'I guess it would be kinder if you… euthanized… him…'

'What the _hell_…' She was furious, struggling not to shout.

'Max, I'm sorry. I never wanted this. But you must see that this is the only solution.'

'You can't ask me to do this Logan. Especially after…' Then she remembered that she'd never told Logan about Ben, and she couldn't continue the conversation, so she closed the phone. Through a blurring veil of tears, she looked miserably down at Alec.

-- -- - - - -

_Things happened in this chapter that I wasn't really expecting. It's kind of true when writers say some stories have a life of their own. I'm not very familiar with writing romance (since my other stuff is all for Supernatural), but that moment just needed to happen. I need to credit a bit of stealing, though, from Louis de Bernières' __Captain Corelli's Mandolin__, one of the most moving love stories I've ever read. My inspiration:_

'_hungry and desperate, filled with light…'_

'_He became my source of optimism.'_

'_I have loved you with the same surprise and gratitude that I see in you eyes when you are with Pelagia.'_

_Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed it, I will update as soon as I can!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(5)**

Logan sighed when Max abruptly cut off their conversation. He hoped that she would see the inescapable logic of it if she stopped to think, but he worried that she would be too impetuous; ruled by her emotions. It had been bred into her that no man should be left behind, and after all, Alec bore the face of one of her lost siblings. That had to mean something. But, on the other hand, Terminal City might even run more smoothly without Alec around. It would be sad to lose someone who had become so much a part of their lives, albeit an unwelcome part. Logan would even miss him, a bit. But they _could_ live without him. They couldn't manage without Max.

'That her?' demanded a gruff voice behind him, pulling Logan abruptly out of his musings.

'What – who?'

'Our intrepid leader. What happened?'

'Complications.'

Mole raised what Logan could only categorise as an eyebrow, indicating that this explanation failed to satisfy him.

'They got jumped by Familiars on their way out. Now all the exits are blocked. Their only hope is to jump onto the roof of a neighbouring building; Alec's injured and can't make the jump.'

'Guess we better go bail them out then,' Mole smirked, looking forward to telling Max he told her so.

Logan shook his head with all the casual authority he could imitate. 'No sense going in guns blazing; it'll only exacerbate our situation. I told Max to just get the hell out of there.'

'You just said they couldn't make it,' Mole pointed out, eyes narrowed shrewdly.

Logan hesitated. He knew nobody would like the decision he'd had to make, but he estimated that Mole of all people should understand the difficult necessities and choices which sometimes arose in battle. 'I told her to leave Alec behind. There's no choice.'

He watched Mole's expression darken. It was difficult to read the emotions on the lizard man's alien features. An involuntary tremor shook him as a shape loomed out of the shadows in the gloomy doorway of the control room.

'What?' Joshua rumbled. His face, acutely expressive despite his startling aspect, was crumbled in disbelief and betrayal.

'Joshua… I'm sorry…' Logan stammered. He'd never felt quite so alienated among transgenics as he did right now.

- - - - - - - -

Max tapped Alec lightly on the cheek, and his eyelids drifted sleepily open.

'Alec?'

He grunted, blinked hard, met her eyes. The skin of his eye sockets was tight with exhaustion and pain.

'Hey. Logan give us a plan B?' he asked, sounding vaguely apologetic for having fallen asleep.

She bit her lip, feeling unfamiliarly fragile, Ben's cold dead face floating heartbreakingly in her mind's eye. 'No, not really,' she said.

'Not really doesn't cut it right now, Max. Sounds like Logan's way off his game.'

'He says it's all blocked up with police downstairs. Says we could jump for a warehouse roof…'

'How far?' Alec asked, trying to keep his voice indifferent though he knew this was the million dollar question.

She shook her head. 'He says I should leave you behind,' she admitted. She almost felt that telling him would share the burden, although with retrospect, it was impossibly cruel to offer up a choice like that.

Alec swallowed. Ouch. Well, if that was true – and Logan wouldn't lie with Max's life at stake, whatever his differences with Alec – if that was true, then they had two options: death or glory on the ground floor, or a lonely, hideous death for him and a surreptitious escape for Max. It was desperately unfair that it had come to this.

Alec had clung to his selfishness throughout a life black with adversity, had thrown away his morals when the situation demanded and had fought without respite to stay alive, one day at a time. That arrogance, that self-centred personality which Max and Logan had found so repellent, was the only way he could retain any semblance of self against that incessant attack. And now maybe selfishness was the only thing which would save him from loneliness and capture and torture and death.

But there was logic which said you could save nobody or you could save one and it wasn't even a question; and there was Max, and she was there and she was looking at him with her eyes all big and bright and full, she was with him and she'd _kissed_ him and she was just so, so _fucking_ beautiful…

Selfishness failed him. It was no choice at all.

'Max… far be it from me to agree with Logan about anything, but I think maybe…' he began croakily.

Max watched his face incredulously. She hadn't expected that. She'd expected some stupid smart-ass remark to calm her nerves, or self-righteous anger at Logan…

He looked so terrified, and so very, very young, saying that although it was clear that it frightened him beyond all description. She loved him in that moment.

She decided to express this with violence.

She slapped him, not gently, across the face. He shut up abruptly, looking confused, as though beginning to wonder if any of this was really happening at all or if it was just a fever dream. She just couldn't let him go on with his hideous noble sentiments.

'Max!' he spluttered. 'I'm trying to do the right thing.'

'It never bothered you before,' she shot back petulantly.

He blinked at her; he didn't understand her at the best of times, but this was insane.

'Alec, how can you agree with him? Do you really think it's even an option for me to leave you behind? Do you remember, I told you… about… about Ben.'

He remembered, vividly. She'd confided in him that night, treated him as an equal for the first time. It was branded on his memory in colours of gratitude and pain.

He knew Max still carried that guilt with her, and that it was inevitably tied up in her relationship with him, because every time she looked at him she was reminded of what she'd had to do. It hurt a little, though, to think that after everything, he was still to her a cruel reminder of Ben, plastered across the wrong man's face. But ultimately, the cold logic which Logan had offered so helpfully still stood. Max needed to survive, and for a dead twin, or even for his own sake, that fact couldn't be changed.

'Max,' he whispered. 'That wasn't your fault. It doesn't change anything… Logan… he… he wants what's best for you, and-.'

She slapped him again, but more gently, like a rough caress.

'I know. But it's not just because of Ben… I need you,' she choked out.

'You can manage, Max… you're strong. You got the others…'

'I don't mean… surviving. I mean, in my life. I…'

For a terrible moment, she thought he looked horrified, disgusted at what she was trying to express. Then his eyes were all wide with wonder and anguish.

'But, Max. You've got to survive; sort out that motley band of freaks.' He tried valiantly to smile, but she was resolute.

She shook her head. 'No.'

He chewed his lip.

'Alec. You said it yourself. Nothing's for certain right now. All we can do is try our best. From one day to another. Try to stay alive till tomorrow.'

He sighed. 'You pick now to listen to me Max? I don't know what I'm talking about, thought you knew that by now.'

She held his gaze, unblinking; decided.

He was humbled by the weight of her faith.

'Alright then,' he croaked. 'For death or glory.'

- - - - - - - -

_Thank you for reading! I'm very sorry about the appalling update rate, I don't have any excuse other than 'I'm busy', which doesn't really cut it! I'm posting this now although it's barely half the length I would usually aim for as a chapter, because then you won't have to wait so long for the answer to the question most reviewers asked! I'm thoroughly honoured that anyone's still reading this considering my terrible disorganisation - if only all writers were blessed with readers like you! _


	6. Chapter 6

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(6)**

'We don't just give up on our own, ordinary,' Mole snarled. Logan leaned back, unsettled by the transhuman's intense scrutiny and angry tone.

'It's not what I wanted!' he blurted out, trying to keep his voice level. 'But you have to understand…'

Joshua made a low, wordless sound of protest and suspicion; he and Mole shared a look which seemed to communicate something which Logan was not privy to.

'Really?' Mole challenged darkly. 'It isn't what you wanted? Some people might say that you'd be pretty happy to have the competition removed.'

Logan swallowed, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. He attempted a smirk to lighten the painfully charged atmosphere. 'Honestly, Mole, I don't know what you're talking about…'

'Ya don't? It's pretty obvious to everyone else that our Pretty Boy's caught Max's eye.'

Logan's stomach flipped. 'Come on… they're at each other's throats half the time. And the rest of the time she's laughing at him. When they're together nobody knows if they're going to attack one another with jokes or punches. I don't seriously think she'd consider him…'

'No? 'Cause according to _Common Verbal Usage_ 101, that's called sexual chemistry.'

Logan curled his lip in scornful denial, but he couldn't find the words to voice it – they seemed to freeze in his throat.

- - - - - - - -

Max gathered the bag containing the drugs they had come for, and slung it over her shoulder, tightening the straps so that she wouldn't have to worry about holding onto it. She checked that the heavy treatment table was securely pushed against the cabinet which held Ames White, snatched a handful of gauze from the shelves in case she had to triage Alec on their way out, and finally bent to gingerly pick up White's discarded firearm, shoving it into the back of her waistband.

'Right,' she sighed eventually, turning back to Alec. He was sitting on the floor, winding a bandage around his ribs, wincing at the pressure it was exerting on his wound. He looked up at her, his expression pained but determined.

'How you doing?' she asked softly, kneeling to help him. He grunted in a non-committal sort of way, and she gently took the ends of the length of gauze from him and tied it off, as tight as she could manage. She met his eyes guiltily when he failed to stifle a gasp. 'Sorry.'

He shook his head mutely, breathing hard to level himself. 'Okay…' he croaked eventually. 'It's okay. Let's go.'

She pulled his arm over her shoulders and slowly levered them both to their feet. She felt small under his slumped weight, but felt him gradually lift himself, relying on her less and less until he was standing – swaying a little, but standing nonetheless – at full height.

'Alright?' she asked, placing a steadying hand on his shoulder.

'Yeah. Let's do this.'

That, at least, sounded a bit more like the Alec she knew and… well, you know. Yes. Loved.

- - - - - - - -

Logan sat alone in the command centre, scanning the news feed for any indication of events out in the city. Mole's angry words were simmering away, suppressed as far as possible in his mind, but worse were Joshua's betrayed looks, flickering across his mind's eye. He'd never felt close to the dog-man, but he felt kind of warmed by Joshua's childlike optimism and trust, and the force of his disappointment and disillusion weighed heavily on him.

The computer screen showed the hospital's ground-floor plan, where the casualty unit was still running chaotically even at this hour of the night. Seattle was far from a safe place in the dark, and the violent crime alone could keep the hospitals busy, even without the odd elderly person's heart attack or child's arm broken in a fall.

The police presence was subtle but heavy. They were lurking in all the doorways, waiting in the stairwells and pacing one or two of the principal corridors.

The CCTV feed from upstairs was of very poor quality. Logan squinted at the screen and could just about discern two figures moving by the door, standing very close together as though one was supporting the other. So far, they hadn't made a move, but by the looks of it, Max had disregarded his advice.

It made Logan's stomach turn, seeing them so close together. Sure, he'd been duped before into the belief that they were 'together', but a part of him had never believed that, and he'd taken Max's hand in his on the rooftop that day as proof that it had all been a lie. That, despite constant adversity, she was still his at heart.

Mole's jeering words came back to him. _Sexual chemistry…_ Was that what it was, the volatile and frequently violent relationship between Max and Alec? Logan couldn't imagine such a dynamic leading to any sort of genuine attachment. Their bickering and verbal fireworks seemed incompatible with romance. It wasn't an idea which fit into his mentality.

And yet… Max's voice had been so appalled when he told her to leave Alec behind. And earlier, hunched anxiously in front of the screen watching for a hint of why they were so late, he'd seen… too blurred to be certain, but Max's face had seemed horribly close to Alec's. Mouth-to-mouth, he'd told himself. Alec had been in a bad way. Max was a compassionate woman; it upset her to see other people hurt, even if she didn't care much for the individual.

He just hoped she wasn't so compassionate she'd lose her life for the sake of her problematic cohort.

- - - - - - - - -

Alec pressed his fingertips against the wall as a sort of feeble support, or just the reassurance that he was still connected to the real world. He breathed out carefully through his mouth, closing his eyes to still the dizzying spinning of the room around him.

He opened his eyes, and Max was standing in front of him uncertainly, watching him with very genuine, young, concerned eyes. He offered a weak smirk to bring back some semblance of normality. She frowned.

'I can see right through that, Alec. Tell me the truth; are you alright?'

Alec considered. He was, he thought, _sort of_ okay, considering. He wasn't really bleeding anymore, and although his side hurt like a _bitch _he could manage the pain if he focused. He felt light-headed and weak, but he was standing, and didn't feel too close to falling on his face. That was _fairly_ okay, for someone who'd been shot, right?

Considering that he was _more or less_ alright, and that Max was looking at him like a lost child pleading for some semblance of the world's proper order, he determined that the best thing to do would be to say 'I'm always alright.'

Max gave him a disgusted look. She sighed in exasperation, and flapped her hand against his arm in a sort of half-hearted slap.

And all was right with the world.

- - - - - - - - -

Mole swung a rifle over his shoulder and huffed, shooting a terse look at Joshua before striding towards the entrance to the sewer tunnels. Dalton realised after a few seconds where they were headed, and sprinted to intercept them.

'You're going outside? What's going on?'

Mole growled ominously at the young X6, turning deliberately to walk past him, only to find the boy in front of him again, quick as an eel. 'Did something go wrong?'

Joshua looked down at the youthful soldier with sympathetic eyes. The X6 had swiftly adopted Alec as an idol, and had made it his business to know where he and Max were going that night. He had incredible energy, was always on the alert, and could not have failed to notice that Alec and Max had not yet returned.

'Going to help Max and Alec,' he confessed. 'Ran into some trouble.'

Mole shot an accusatory look at his comrade.

'Are they okay?'

Joshua shifted guiltily. 'We heard Alec might be hurt. But they're stuck. Need us to help them get back.'

'I'll come.'

Mole shook his head. 'No. Not a chance.'

'I can't just hang around. Not knowing… because I'm part of this now…' Dalton protested.

Mole growled scornfully. 'We give you twenty words' information and you're involved. Go back to bed, kid.'

Dalton drew himself up to his full height, which rather lacked impact in front of the two looming and heavily built transgenics. 'Wouldn't expect you to be helping out, Mole. Thought you'd be thrilled at the opportunity to tell them they were wrong.'

'Ain't no fun in telling a couple bodies I told them so, boy.'

Dalton gaped, silent. 'That bad?' he asked hesitantly after an uncomfortable pause.

'It'll be alright,' Joshua rumbled.

Mole, vaguely mollified, regarded Dalton out of the corner of his eye. 'Look, kid. You want to help, you could keep an eye on the ordinary in the command centre, and make sure there's some sort of medical area set up when we get back.'

'The ordinary?'

'Logan,' Joshua supplied.

Dalton frowned, remembering Max's Ordinary ally. 'Is he a threat?'

'Probably not. He's just had some pretty controversial ideas recently. Just keep him somewhere he can't do any harm.'

Dalton chewed his lip. He had a lot more questions. But he was Manticore. 'Yes, sir,' he replied simply. And then, because these days he was a little bit human, too, he added: 'Good luck.'

- - - - - - - - -

The door cracked open with a loud clunk, and squeaked softly as Max stuck her head out far enough to look up and down the dark, empty corridor. Her eyes were as wide as they could go, her nerves on edge waiting for an enemy to appear at any moment.

'Clear?' Alec prompted hoarsely, so close she could feel his breath on her neck.

'Yeah,' she whispered. She glanced up and down the corridor once more, then pushed the door open properly.

Wounded or not, Alec was all textbook Manticore stealth mode as they made their way down the empty corridor. Max headed silently for the elevator.

'You want to take the elevator?' Alec asked her, incredulous. 'Great way to announce _ting, _here we are'

'I don't think the stealthy mode's going to get us far down there. At least this way they can't shoot us while we're halfway down the stairs; we can be among them and fighting as soon as they know we're there.'

Alec winced. 'Those aren't great options, Max. Sure you don't want to try Logan's plan?'

She glared at him. 'We've been through this,' she said quietly, with determined finality.

He swallowed mutely, and nodded his acquiescence. Max pressed the elevator call button and stood tapping her foot impatiently. Something in her stance seemed to offer a silent challenge to question her again. Alec didn't.

The door opened, and they shuffled inside with a casualness which seemed utterly absurd given the intensity of the situation. They stood side by side like lawyers or accountants ignoring one another as they rode up and down a twenty-storey monument to capitalism. Alec tilted his head and regarded Max sideways: she was pale in the fluorescent light, her full lips pressed together and her dark liquid eyes as impassive as she could render them. She felt him looking. She reached out a tentative hand and touched his arm, so gently he barely felt it through his jacket. The tiny impression of her fingers was like a balm.

Max sighed. She took one step and pushed her fist against the button labelled 'Ground Floor', then swayed back shoulder to shoulder with Alec. A watcher in the corridor might have seen them and the brightly lit elevator swiftly erased by the dark metal doors, like a TV set which had been just suddenly – switched off.

- - - - - - - - -

_I'm so sorry! I'm a bad bad author, and I guess it's just kind of unfortunate that the most popular story I've written is also the one I really struggle to find time for. Anyone who's still here with me, thank you so much for your superhuman patience. And thanks to vintage494, who gave me the nudge I needed, a few weeks ago, to get back to work on this. _


	7. Chapter 7

Alive till Tomorrow

_Just a heads up – there is a little bit of swearing in this chapter. Sometimes anything other than curse words would just sound like a joke, and the character just really wanted to swear!_

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(7)**

The door opened with a cheery _ping_ of acknowledgement.

The corridor was quietly busy; people going about their business with subdued efficiency, wan weary patients waiting to be seen, muted prescribed conversations. And a sense of wrongness, underlying all. This corridor was populated every night with the same characters, but tonight their normality was play-acted. That nurse shuffling along with a chart and some tubing had done the same last night, but tonight she was assuming the role of a nurse doing her job. There was an invisible lie hanging in the air.

Max and Alec stepped out of the elevator and started walking; fiercely nonchalant. One foot in front of the other, again, and again; eyes on the door. Keep walking. Don't make eye contact. Faces turned to follow their movement: suspicious, frightened, knowing, loathing. Glances were exchanged around them, behind them, wide eyes flashing signals across the room. Footsteps in adjacent corridors. Whispered warnings. Keep walking. Silence buzzing in their ears. The door, ahead. Twenty more steps. Impossible… - maybe? No. But, if only… Just keep walking. Dark uniforms moving in their peripheral vision. Any second now.

'Freeze!'

The shout tore through the forced tranquillity, unnecessarily loud. Without looking at each other, they took another step in unison and a warning shot blasted their eardrums. It ricocheted off the ceiling harmlessly, but a few sparks flew and plaster dust rained down into Max's hair; several people screamed. The two X5s stopped. Turned. Max reached under her jacket swiftly with one hand, tensing her muscles and feeling Alec do likewise beside her. They sprung into action like a Jack-in-the-Box.

Max blurred towards the speaker in a zigzag line, watched his face turn from determination to astonishment as she materialised in front of him, jerked the gun upwards sharply out of his hands. She whacked it across his head, and he went down for the count; she helped him on his way with a kick to the stomach, spinning with a shout to toss the gun to Alec and duck a bullet.

Around them, chaos had erupted, nurses rushed to move patients away from the violent disturbance, people screamed and sprinted for cover. It all seemed distant from Max; her movements were mechanical as she disarmed a second policeman and took a few quick steps towards the door before being intercepted by another.

A guilty rush of adrenaline seized Max – she wasn't a creature of violence, not really, but _God_, was there anything like it? Her senses heightened so much it was like having personal built in radar alerting her to every moment, overwhelming all other thought, her brain concentrating so hard it was beyond language…

Imagine. If Logan could see her now…

She was aware of Alec: he was a bright light in the many shapes moving around her; moving smoothly if not quite so quickly as he might have done otherwise. She'd seen him fight. She knew he was familiar with everything she felt right now. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as he pulled a cop towards him by yanking hard on the hand which was pointing a gun at him, then felling him with an efficiently brutal elbow to the face.

Alec faltered almost imperceptibly as the falling cop snatched at him as he went down: he stumbled slightly and banished his assailant with a vicious blow from the butt of the gun Max had thrown him. She saw him wince as he steadied himself, but then he was moving on, stony-faced.

Her attention was demanded by another attacker grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her around; before she had time to react his fist was in her stomach; she brought up her knee to push him away and followed it with a kick, but he didn't fall back. She put all her weight behind a right hook and he caught it in his hand. She met his eyes indignantly. It dawned on her that he shouldn't be able to do that. A full-power punch from an adult X5 should be unstoppable for a human. His look was a little more loathing, a little less fear than she'd come to expect from the police force. This was a Familiar.

He hit her again, and she curled her back reflexively in response. His hands, too fast, were on her back, pushing her down to her knees, pinning her with his feet, one arm around her in a headlock and – oh – a cold blade against her throat.

'Call him,' he hissed in her ear: she felt his breath hot and moist against her skin and grimaced. Alec was slamming one of the remaining cops into a wall. She choked out his name and he turned towards her as the cop slid down the wall and crumpled up in a heap. Alec froze.

'Stop there or your bitch'll be a head shorter and a whole hell of a lot uglier.'

Alec spread his hands and relaxed his fingers so that the gun slipped out. It clattered loudly against the floor in the sudden silence.

'Okay. Now what?' he asked quietly.

'Now you're both for the fucking chop, asshole. Right after you tell me where I can find my superior so I can send him your heads.'

Alec smirked bitterly and took a step towards them.

'Don't move!' spat the Familiar. Max winced in disgust as his saliva spattered across her cheek. 'She won't look so hot with scars.'

'Neither of us'll look too hot dead,' Alec pointed out wryly, but he stopped moving.

'Where is he, animal?'

Alec fixed him with the polite, innocently misunderstanding expression he'd often used to irritate Max. 'I have no idea. Why would I? Just let her go.'

He met Max's eyes for a split second, confused and impatient, questioning; worried. She realised suddenly that he couldn't know their aggressor was a Familiar. That look was asking 'what are we doing here?' as though he expected her to disarm him in a swift move and hurry on.

If she didn't move, Alec would look for an opening to disarm him himself, expecting it to be over with a twist of his arm. But injured as he was, Alec would be dead in moments against this Familiar.

The man shifted his grip so she was pressed painfully tight against his chest, the tip of the knife on her jugular. A tiny bead of blood blossomed at the point and slid down her neck. Alec gulped and took a small step back.

'Look, man,' he offered, shaken, 'we haven't done anything to hurt you. Or anyone.'

'You're a criminal. You have to pay,' Max's captor responded. She could only assume that such a response was an effort to appear a genuine police officer. She wriggled a bit, experimentally, but stopped when the pressure increased. She tilted her head back and watched Alec through her eyelashes.

'Which one of us is behaving like a criminal right now?' Alec demanded, with a hint of anger in his voice which surprised her. 'I just want to take my friend and go home.'

'Your existence is a fucking crime, freak,' the Familiar spat back.

'We're not so different from you,' Alec tried. Max thought: he must be desperate if he's trying to appeal to this guy's compassion… but then, Alec didn't know he was a Familiar. She wanted to sob with frustration, feeling his chest quaking with mirth against her back.

'Yeah? What makes you _human_?'

Alec glanced helplessly from side to side as if in search of inspiration.

'I love her,' he finally offered quietly.

Max could feel the man laughing, but he just said, 'What?'

'I love her!' Alec growled, so angrily that a non-English speaker would have been more likely to guess that he'd said 'I hate her.'

Max could hear muttering behind her; some of the civilian observers had clearly been affected by Alec's confession. Her heart burned.

'Really?' the Familiar was saying by her ear. 'And does she feel the same? – Let's ask her,' he added, before Alec could respond. 'Well?' he hissed, so close she could feel the cooling sweat on his face.

She ignored him, fixed her eyes on Alec and only him. 'Yes,' she whispered.

The Familiar was moving behind her, relaxing his grip. Alec looked astonished that his last ditch effort to get out of this had apparently worked. Max's stomach clenched in horrible anticipation.

'Well, in that case…'

There was a mutter of approval from behind. The knife left her neck. She breathed out heavily. The Familiar moved almost as fast as she could herself – his arm swung back and plunged forwards with expert precision. Alec had turned away in oblivious, adrenalised relief, and perhaps embarrassment. The knife handle suddenly seemed to sprout from between his shoulder blades. He made a sound like a diver surfacing, or like a surprised cat, and toppled forwards to his knees. He made a half-hearted attempt to reach for the source of the pain, and choked out a cry when it intensified. Max saw his profile contorted in agony as he collapsed sideways and caught himself with his hands.

All she could see was the pain in his face. She was aware of the unfamiliar cold metal shape in the back of her belt, and then it was in her hands, and then it was against the Familiar's forehead, and her finger was pressing the trigger.

'Max?'

She looked around. Alec was barely holding himself up, his knees, elbows and forehead all pressed against the floor. It hadn't been him who had spoken. She looked past him, into the doorway, where a few confused policemen still stood, holding their firearms kind of uncertainly. Beyond them, Mole and Joshua, staring at her past the arms which were blocking their way.

'Let them through!' she demanded, and to her surprise, they did. Any voice of authority would do for a cop in the middle of an existential crisis.

She flipped the gun expertly in her hand and snapped the butt of it across the Familiar's head, turning away before he had hit the floor.

Alec had given up his futile effort to keep his body from the floor, and was reaching slowly for the knife with one hand twisted awkwardly behind his back. His hand was shaking. He was breathing in short, shocked bursts, and when his fingertip brushed the protruding knife handle, he gasped and turned his face into the floor.

Max skidded to her knees beside him, unaware of all surrounding activity now.

'You're such an idiot,' she choked out impulsively. 'Such an idiot.'

He nodded earnest agreement, his forehead still pressed against the cold blue plastic floor.

'Worst thing is…' he whispered bitterly, 'I almost thought it would work.'

'He's a Familiar,' Max told him gently, uselessly.

He turned his head sideways to fix her with a glazed stare. Resting next to his face, his hand twitched compulsively. 'Oh… now I feel like an idiot,' he muttered hoarsely.

She sobbed out a laugh in response.

'Little fella?' a voice rumbled behind her, a large hand resting heavily on her shoulder.

She looked up and round. Joshua was looming over them, staring at Alec with the despairing look of a child who fears that a much loved toy is too broke to fix, this time. Behind him, Mole was pointing a huge gun at the limp Familiar on the floor and glaring at everyone else challengingly.

A young man, presumably a doctor, took a tiny step forwards, hands spread at his sides in acknowledgement of Mole and his weapon. 'Look…' he offered in a whisper, then cleared his throat nervously. 'I don't know about your… physiology, but – I can try to… help him…' A muttering among the throng, some in support, some in dissent.

'Why would we trust you to help him?' Max spat, squeezing Alec's hand. Joshua glanced at her concernedly. She took a careful breath. Well, they wanted to help now. She should be grateful for small mercies. But she was so angry with them, their complacency, their intolerance, their hypocrisy. 'Sorry,' she managed to say in a relatively calm voice. 'Just let us go, please. We can take care of our own.'

The cops who were still standing exchanged glances. Their orders were pretty clear, and they weren't sure what had changed, but it was kind of clear that something was different now. It wasn't so easy to see past the human faces of the young man and woman. They had sounded so convincing. The two monsters who had recently appeared still provoked a rush of horror in their stomachs. But, then, the hairy monster was looking at the girl with such apparent gentleness…

'That could easily have nicked an artery…' the earnest doctor was telling Max. 'If you take it out it'll be difficult to control the bleeding.'

'We're not equipped for… them,' an older, female doctor hissed in her colleague's ear. Max could see the doubt and fear in her posture.

'We're going home,' Max said determinedly, looking at Alec but loud enough for everyone. 'Joshua?' she added, getting slowly to her feet. She picked up the bag of supplies which had been the object of the mission, discarded in the chaos. Joshua knelt to carefully scoop up Alec's limp form, making soothing noises to match Alec's sharp intake of breath. Mole backed towards them, still pointing his rifle at the unconscious Familiar.

'Thank you,' Max offered to the doctor in clipped tones. She scanned the various observers with her eyes. 'Just… remember that we're not monsters.'

They trailed out, a strange procession. The cops in the doorway just stood back out of their way.

- - - - - - - - -

_Thanks for reading – should be about 2 chapters to go. All my best wishes to everyone who's still following this; and to everyone who's reviewed, I absolutely love hearing your opinions, you're fantastic! _


	8. Chapter 8

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(8)**

Max followed her comrades wearily out to the hastily parked van. It was crooked, one tyre on the curb, one of the black police vehicles they had driven to Terminal City after the Jam Pony siege. This flight seemed an echo of that day, fainter because less people were involved and the tension was diminished now to a melancholy urgency. But in a way Max felt that this was the more significant event. If one of the events of this week would be, in years to come, what she would consider the axel of her life, somehow she was sure it would be tonight.

Joshua settled Alec carefully on his side; mindful of the doctor's warning, they hadn't tried to pull the knife out of his back. Max knelt beside him on the floor of the van, and Joshua shrank back into the corner as though Alec were too fragile to be within feet of his clumsiness and bulk.

Max brushed errant strands of hair off Alec's forehead with her fingers. He was pale and clammy, trembling; his forehead was creased in pain and his lips were moving as though he was muttering silently. At her touch, his eyelids slid apart.

'How you feeling?' she whispered.

He winced, and offered a tentative 'Peachy…' with the air of a trader hoping his customer will fail to notice the blatant forgery of his goods.

She smiled and shook her head affectionately.

'So, not our best mission, right?'

He grimaced at the colossal understatement, and she regretted her flippancy. It was clear that he was furious with himself for his mistake. 'Worst idea I ever had…' he growled, not looking at her. 'Peddling sentiment to a Familiar, friggin' idiot. Don't tell Mole, I'll never hear the end of it.' He bit his lip, then tried to restore the light tone. His back hurt too much to concentrate. 'Couldn't you have given me a clue about him? Blinked "Familiar" in Morse code or something?' He coughed slightly, and tensed the muscles in his jaw to hold back a yell as the movement agitated his back.

'Sorry,' Max offered, a little tersely. 'My tactics aren't at their best when I'm holding my breath to avoid getting my throat cut. Anyway, if I'd tried Morse code you'd just have thought I had something in my eye.'

That probably wasn't even true. Alec was an incredibly quick study. But actually she felt kind of irritated by his gentle reproach. Why? _Give the guy a break, _she told herslf, _Let the teasing slide this once, since he's bleeding all over the floor. _But something really bugged her. She played back his words in her head. Ah – there it was. 'Peddling sentiment.' That 'I love her', those desperate, angry words she was carrying with her to play back and gloat over when she was alone... they to him were 'sentiment' that he flogged to his enemies as his former self had sold 'andy'. Those words, just 'sentiment'. She imagined them set out on a market stall in the rain like Victorian table ornaments. Alec would say anything to get out of a sticky situation. Of course, she knew that. She wasn't disappointed, just… Well. What an embarrassing misunderstanding.

She needed to be sure without making herself vulnerable, so she kept her tone teasing. 'I'm not to take that for a marriage proposal, then?'

He just laughed and winced. Or winced and laughed. As if it made a difference.

He looked at her out of one eye. 'Why'd you play along?' he croaked.

'What?' She was taken aback. Playing along. Oh, of course, that was what she had done. 'Well, you know… I just, I didn't want him to, you know…' She faltered, hoping he would interpret something from this inarticulate babbling.

'Guess we might have given some of the others something to think about,' Alec conceded obliviously. Actually, he was kind of hazy about how it had all turned out, how he had got from that fluorescent hospital full of hostile figures to this dark place where he seemed to be alone with Max.

She watched his eyes drift shut. _Had _she meant her own confession? Did she – love Alec? She genuinely didn't know. Certainly, she had known at the time. At the time, it had been the _only_ thing she knew for certain, the only thing she would _ever_ know. Now, though… after all, what was contained within that word, love? Thrown around so carelessly, on greetings cards, in throwaway comments and irony and the ends of telephone calls, mixed up with hearts and flowers, that sentiment Alec had been peddling, and with sex, and neediness, partnership and parenthood and narcissism. Any meaning it had of its own was fragile, a sliver of glass splintering under the weight of borrowed significance.

Maybe she loved Alec. But if she did then surely she had never loved Logan.

Perhaps that was too simplistic a way of looking at it. Then again, shouldn't love _be_ simple? People always spoke of it with the utmost certainty. She had been certain, when she'd felt whatever it was she felt for Logan, that it was love. She had felt – warmed, lit up by his attention; she had been in awe of his seriousness, his intelligence, his stoicism after the injury, his altruism, his quiet passion. She felt that he could save her, redeem her; make her worthy of that surprisingly fragile epithet, human. And she had basked in the knowledge that he was intoxicated with her beauty and her mystery and her strength. She'd never felt anything remotely similar towards anyone before Logan, so it seemed that the most appropriate word must be love. She'd heard about it she'd been desperately curious, and then she'd been sure she'd found it.

It hardly seemed… pure, though. The qualities they adored in one another were all worthwhile and positive, but their 'love' was contingent of her admiration for him, and his for her – the way it fed her vanity. It wasn't elemental. It wasn't a thing unto itself.

Maybe she'd been too eager to emulate human emotion, too quick to tag her sensations 'love'. Perhaps humans had an instinct for it that she lacked, some knowledge, intuition, _synderesis_ - some power of distinction implanted by God, overlooked in the final edit of Manticore's neater, more practical DNA cocktail. Perhaps an X5 lacked the capacity for true, elemental, Romeo-and-Juliet love.

Or else, maybe nobody really knew, and it was just an abstract idea which became what you made of it, different every time. In which case, maybe she had loved Logan. Maybe she _still_ loved him. Or maybe… she loved Alec.

She looked down at him - passed out and pale and looking touchingly young on the grimy floor of the van - and realised that her train of thought had dropped her off right back where she started. Maybe she was asking the wrong questions. What she should ask was: did she _want_ to love Alec? Did she want Alec to love her?

Oh. Easy.

- - - - - - - - -

Logan shifted uncomfortably in his seat again and glanced over his shoulder furtively before returning his hard blue gaze to the computer screen. A teenage boy was sitting on the sideboard across the room, swinging his legs and staring fiercely at the back of Logan's head. The intensity of the boy's gaze was unsettling, but that wasn't it: something about the kid's blonde head and self-possessed smirk and lazy athleticism reminded Logan of Alec. It was like having the man – who had, without permission, established himself in Logan's consciousness as 'his rival' – watching him, reproaching him silently for the opinion he'd offered Max, that sane (albeit coldly militaristic) strategy which had nevertheless been received with exceptional hostility by these so-called soldiers.

Logan couldn't help wondering how Alec himself would have reacted to the plan he'd offered, though he fervently hoped that Max hadn't told him. On the slim chance that the X5 survived, Logan didn't want to have to explain himself in the face of Alec's anger. Not that he was afraid of him. But he had a healthy wariness for his genetically 'empowered' strength.

It was irrational, though, this feeling of being watched by his rival. Particularly so, since the reverse was in fact the case. As Logan watched, Alec appeared on the screen in front of him, walking slowly down a corridor, shoulder to shoulder with Max, matching her step for step. There was such a unity between them, in their stance, their shared awareness of the threat surrounding them. Logan was so aware of their mutual aesthetic, the striking magnetism of the way they looked together, that he forgot to worry about them.

He envied Alec for everything he shared with Max that Logan never would. Their childhood, their DNA, their power. The fact that he could touch her – a careless bump of the shoulder, a supportive hand on her forearm. Strange how the denial of any physical contact could make the most mundane touch of skin into a gesture charged with sexual energy. It seemed small comfort in that moment to know that it was him she had chosen. Max and Alec just looked so… nauseously attractive, together like that.

In reality, the knowledge that she had chosen him was all that kept his jealousy from a dangerous pitch. Only with that knowledge to lean on could he prevent himself from hating Alec. Hating him enough to abandon prudence and challenge him, attack him. Max couldn't know that she'd saved Logan's life when she took his hand in hers on that rooftop.

He suddenly became aware that the rhythmic thudding of the boy's heels against the table had stopped some minutes ago, and that he could feel warm breath against the side of his neck. He recoiled and leaned sideways so that he could twist his head and glare at this intruder of his space. The boy paid him no attention; his eyes were riveted to the screen. Alec and Max were still walking, slowly and with such forced nonchalance that it was kind of painful to watch.

As they watched, the two figures faltered almost imperceptibly in their movement, and Logan's stomach apparently solidified in his throat, then relaxed slightly as they took another step. He yelped and sat up instinctively when sparks and plaster dust suddenly rained down on Max's head and she stopped walking and turned around. The boy briefly turned a scathing eye on him. 'Lucky for you there's no sound,' he muttered.

The bearer of the weapon stepped into the frame, as various shadows detached themselves from the walls and became a swarm of indistinct threats surrounding the two figures who were unmoving in the middle of the corridor. Logan's unwelcome companion breathed out a long half-impressed, half-terrified 'fuuuuuck…'

Logan blinked, and the tableau exploded into movement, so fast that for a confused instant he thought the screen had reverted to static. He identified Max's whirling figure among the grainy black and white chaos and followed her with his eyes. She was fast enough that he had to concentrate to keep track of her. The boy murmured 'wow,' and despite himself, Logan had to agree.

'She's… incredible,' he whispered, partly as a sort of peace offering, to build bridges. Mostly, though, out of projected narcissism, because he still couldn't believe that this beautiful, powerful woman was his, and he wanted to share his triumph – at this point, with anybody who would listen.

The boy blinked absently; glanced at him sideways again. Logan balked at his condescension – surely he deserved better than to be patronised by a genetically engineered teenager.

'She pretty good considering… like, how much training she missed, and everything. But – watch Alec.'

Logan frowned. He complied reluctantly. To his eye, Alec seemed to be engaged in identical activity to Max – if anything, a fraction slower. He flicked his eyes to the X6, who seemed utterly enthralled. He looked back at the screen. On second study, there was something more precise, more calculated about the way Alec fought. Every strike fell in such a way that it seemed specifically engineered for maximum impact. Although he moved slightly slower than Max, Alec was actually disposing of his aggressors at almost double her rate. And, although reportedly injured, he didn't seem to be struggling. He barely seemed to be _trying…_

Logan realised that he hadn't been watching Max, and when he flicked his eyes back, the screen had frozen again. He whacked the side of the computer – like all intelligent people he maintained several illogical beliefs, one of which was that technological items can be motivated by violence.

Only at the young X6's spontaneous gasp did he realise that the sudden stillness was not due to any technical malfunction, but to some circumstances which had developed within the scene they were watching. Seeing it on a screen made it feel like watching a movie - but watching it with the knowledge that they would in reality have to deal with the ramifications of the film's outcome.

The angle they observed from granted them a view of an indistinct shape where Max should be, too big to be just her, but unclear because of the dodgy picture and because the figure or figures faced away. Nevertheless, to Logan the situation was painfully clear – every detail of it was written in Alec's face and stance, clearly illuminated in the centre of the frame, staring at the shape which was Max. His hands were spread at his sides, and he'd allowed the gun he held to slip out of his fingers to the floor.

Logan wished fervently that the woman he loved could be a little less noble from time to time.

'Oh, Max,' Logan breathed to himself. 'I wish you'd listened to me.'

- - - - - - - - -

The first pale glow of dawn was beginning to illumine their faces as Max followed Mole and Joshua into Terminal City. They bore Alec on an improvised stretcher between them, still on his stomach with his inert head cushioned on his hands. A few wan, tousled transgenics drifted around, confused and frightened by the sombre scene they'd woken up to. They'd never looked less like soldiers. Mole grated out orders as he carried Alec in and a few of them seemed to wake up from the daze.

'Find out who's got the most medical training. Best four or five medics, follow me. And we need blood donors. Make sure the perimeter is secure. Where's the ordinary? Someone run ahead and gather all the medical equipment we've got. Clear a space; make sure it's clean…'

Max swallowed, blinking hard. She needed Mole to rally her back to reality. They couldn't really delay the moment much longer – that knife had to come out. The wound in Alec's back was more serious than they'd allowed themselves to consider. And, by God, or by whatever it was appropriate for her to swear to, she couldn't lose him now.

Time passed in a blur of activity. A motley selection of transhumans and X-series had been dragged from their beds: two of them had been subjected to Manticore's full medical training regime, and four others had advanced field medicine or had been in the middle of completing some more substantial qualification when Max's actions had terminated Manticore. A transhuman who'd been going by Frank, having named himself after the first human he came across outside Manticore, took charge of the hastily assembled 'team'.

Max was barely aware of their ministrations, their shouts about pulse and pressure and God knew what were just buzzing in her ears. She moved through the chaos like a ghost, unheeded, and stopped by Alec's head.

'What's happening?' he muttered, taking her by surprise. She realised that his eyes were open a crack, just enough for a hazel sliver to appear between bruised eyelids. At her failure to answer he tried pathetically to move, disconcerted by the unidentified activity surrounding them. 'Max,' he whispered, wincing, 'I can't move.'

'It's okay, we're home,' she muttered.

'I can't move,' he repeated.

She bit her lip. She hadn't considered the possibility that the knife had damaged Alec's spinal cord. Oh, God. He'd never get over it if he was confined to a wheelchair – it had been hard enough for Logan, and Alec was such a creature of movement.,.

She caught Frank's eye and mouthed 'spinal cord?' turning her face surreptitiously away from Alec. He shook his head. 'He's X5. You have stem cells in your bloodstream; you can re-grow spinal tissue. Could be some temporary difficulty moving and pain, but he won't be paralysed. Chances are the knife's trapped some nerves and when it's out he'll regain motor function.'

'There's still a knife in me…?' Alec muttered. Max turned back to him guiltily.

'We're going to take it out now,' she told him. He flinched in anticipation.

She turned back to Frank. 'What about artery damage? A doctor at the hospital told us…'

Frank pulled a grim face. 'It's likely. That's why we're waiting for a few units to be donated before we try to pull it out.'

'Max –,' Alec gasped behind her.

She spun to face him. He tried to lift his head; it fell back with a thud after a second and she pressed a hand gently against his cheek to prevent him from trying again. 'I'm here.'

'Don't… go anywhere,' he whispered.

She nodded, wide-eyed.

Mole backed in to the room carrying three gory red plastic bags and a handful of tubing. He exchanged glances with Frank and the assembled medics. 'Showtime…' he muttered grimly.

Alec tensed visibly. Max gripped his hand, unsure whether she or he needed the connection more. One of Frank's assistants was hooking a transfusion into Alec's other arm in a sort of pre-emptive strike on the anticipated blood loss.

'Keep him awake if you can,' Frank instructed Max, facing her across Alec's prone form. He clasped his hands around the handle. Alec choked on a cry at the tiny movement and bit into his lip. Max gently placed a metal rod wrapped in a bandage between his teeth to protect his tongue against the instinctive biting reflex. His eyes were hard and determined, but apprehensive.

'Get it over with,' Max told Frank.

He nodded and pulled the handle up and clear of his patient in a smooth movement to a count of five. Alec gave a muffled, guttural roar of pain. His grip on Max's hand tightened to the point where she was certain her bones were grinding against one another. Deep red blood welled up in the newly liberated gash and spread quickly, soaking the tattered remnants of his black t-shirt and staining his pale skin.

Max watched the colour drain out of Alec's face with alarming rapidity. His eyelids dipped, and she pulled the rod out of his mouth, squeezing his hand. 'Alec. Alec! Come on. Stay with me.'

He looked at her. She wanted to cry when she saw the expression in his eyes. 'Guess I liked that knife better where it was,' he murmured absently.

'It would have got in the way… if you wanted to take up chimney sweeping or something,' she offered, reverting again to inane conversation as a distraction.

'Unlikely,' he replied softly.

'Never say never,' she retorted.

'Say what I like, won't remember it tomorrow anyway,' he murmured. His eyelids dipped again. Damn, but he was _white…_

'Alec! Wake up…'

'Step back, Max,' Frank's quietly authoritative voice broke into her thoughts. 'We need to get this bleeding under control.'

She shuffled away obediently, only to look on helplessly as Alec slumped once more into unconsciousness.

- - - - - - - - -

_Thanks for reading - I think one more chapter and an epilogue, coming soon! _


	9. Chapter 9

_AN: Some of this chapter might be interpreted as 'Logan-bashing'. I imagine most of you are pretty open to the idea of MA or you wouldn't be here, but if you feel this is horribly out of character, I apologise. I needed Logan to act in a certain way, and I tried to make his choices as understandable and sympathetic as possible, but ultimately, he's just not the hero of the story here. Well, enjoy! _

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(9)**

Max trudged wearily up the metal stairs and into the command centre. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick, her eyes red and swollen, every limb weighed down with lingering anxiety and grief. Logan sat alone at one of the computer terminals chewing the end of a pen and staring into space, his face lit up an eerie blue by the glow of the monitor. He looked up when she arrived, then pushed himself laboriously to his feet, smiling a tired but relieved smile. 'Max – thank God.'

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall.

'I'd heard you got back, but… thank God you made it. How's Alec doing?'

She opened her eyes a crack without moving her head. 'He'll live' she replied guardedly.

Logan gulped. 'That's great,' he rasped. Oh, damn, she was pissed. It wasn't like he'd told her to shoot him. Or, then again… _'I guess it would be kinder if you… euthanized… him'…_ arguably he had. Well, she would forgive him, he was sure. It was – he wouldn't dare say it aloud, but in his head where nobody could detect it – it was only Alec. 'I'm sorry, Max. I was worried about you; I thought it was the only way.' He wished he could go over and put his arms around her. 'I'm just glad you're okay. When I saw that guy threatening you… God. I'm just glad you're okay.' He coughed. 'Both of you.'

'I don't think Alec would describe himself as _okay_ right now,' she said evenly. Actually, _he_ probably would, but that was hardly the point.

Logan winced. He felt an irrational rush of anger towards Alec for unwittingly being the bone of contention between him and Max. 'Look, if I'd thought there was any chance, I would never…'

He trailed off and cleared his throat. 'I'm sorry, Max.'

She finally looked at him, then slumped and sighed. 'You don't have to apologise to me – it just shook me up a bit is all.' She stopped, and Logan couldn't find anything to say. Phrases suggested themselves and were dismissed; his lips seemed disinclined to co-operate with his brain. Max seemed to be in similar difficulty. She opened her mouth silently, changed her mind and closed it again. She slid her back down the wall and folded her legs up in front of her on the ground.

'Actually, I wanted to talk to you. Um.'

Logan waited for her to continue, but she let that 'um' hang in the air like it was a sentence in its own right. He was sufficiently cowed by her anger that he didn't prompt her to continue, just gazed at his fingernails and waited.

'The thing is… all this… made me think about… us, and I realised…' She was staring intently at her own knees.

Logan's throat was dry. He tried to quell the fury which was simmering in his stomach, but it was difficult – he was convinced that he knew what she was going to say. His hands had clenched themselves into fists. He had to concentrate to keep his voice steady. 'Max-,' he croaked.

'Logan please – this isn't easy. I need to just – spit it out. I think… all this time, we've been apart because of Manticore and the virus… we assumed nothing would change, that we could just stick it out until all those obstacles dissolved away. I guess we were naïve. People change and – and I've been taking for granted that it was what I wanted – because I couldn't _have _it, have – well, you. And I've realised…'

'What?' Logan couldn't prevent the bitter edge in his voice. This was like having a band-aid pulled off at snail's pace.

She looked up at him sharply. Her forehead was creased with the impossibility of finding a kind way to say this. She closed her eyes, breathed in and out and continued in soft measured tones, each word invested with its own careful weight.

'I realised that I don't feel the same way for you as I did. I still… I want you to be in my life but I think all this time we were waiting to be Romeo and Juliet, we've been fooling ourselves. I don't know if we ever could have been – like that – but, the thing… what I'm trying – I want to say is that… it's not what I want. Not any more.' She took another shaky breath and continued staring at her knees, leaving her words to swell up and fill the silence with their resonance.

Logan grimaced. His tongue tasted sour in his mouth. 'Gee, Max. Never though I could have my heart broken so… inarticulately,' he sniped, looking at a point two feet above her left ear.

'Please, don't be childish about this, Logan,' she whispered uncomfortably.

'Childish?' he spluttered. 'You really think you're in a position to talk about _childish_, Max? How's this for childish: spend a year waiting to be with the guy you're supposedly in love with, then spend one night in the company of a guy who's younger and fitter and jump ship!'

'Don't bring Alec into this. It isn't like that.'

'You're not fooling me, Max. Look me in the eye and tell me this isn't _all_ about Alec.'

She glared at him, her guilt gradually evaporating. 'The way I feel about you isn't affected by the way I feel about Alec.'

He snorted derisively. 'Right. What exactly did he say to you? That I'm too _ordinary_? Not good enough for you because I can't move at the speed of sound? Did he tell you you're a "unique creature, unlike any other"?'

She met his eyes with a stony gaze, but didn't answer.

'Have you forgotten whose fault it is that _we_ can't be together? Convenient for him, huh? Remember that you "hate" him?'

A flicker of anger stirred her features. 'That's not true. You don't know – last night, you can't understand what it was like…'

'Because I wasn't made in a test tube?'

She sighed and closed her eyes.

He bit his lip and tried a different approach. 'I'm sorry. It's just… I know, I don't know what it's like to be… to have your life. And in that way, I…' His throat was clogged up, making it difficult to push the words out. 'I guess Alec will always understand you better than I can. But…you've had a frightening experience… you must be exhausted. Just – please – don't make any drastic decisions until you've had a chance to think, with a level head.'

She shook her head. 'Logan, I'm _sorry_.'

'Max – please – just think. Don't be impulsive…you're stressed right now, don't make a decision you'll regret…'

'I'm sure-.'

'Maybe _now,_ but…'

'No!'

She stood up and turned to lean her forehead against the wall, breathing deeply. After a few seconds, she faced him. 'You might be right.' She saw him begin to smile and hurried on. 'No – you might be right. You're a good man, you care about people and you're always _thinking _and trying to do the right thing. You're probably good for me. You're probably – what I need. I can do "level-headed", I _can_ listen to my head and I _know_ you might be right. But I don't want to. And I know this isn't the time to be irresponsible, but, damn it, Logan – Alec's right when he says our lives are always threatened. All we can do is try to stay alive. But really_ alive_. And if I might be dead tomorrow I can't afford to do the right thing, just because it's right. I have to – what I _need_ is – what I _want_… I'm young, I _am_ impulsive, and… I'm not in love with you – I think – maybe I was, but now… not any more. And he -.'

She stopped. Logan didn't need to hear the rest. She had to save it, make sure the words were right so she could offer them to the true addressee.

'What? You're going to tell me you're in love with _him_?... God. You're not the woman I thought you were.'

She watched him sombre-faced. The way she endured his caustic remarks made him want to throw up. He knew his bitterness wasn't helping his case but he couldn't help it.

'So does Alec return this… feeling?' he spat. Of course he did. It had always been clear that Alec would do anything to take Max away from him.

Max looked vulnerable for the first time in their conversation. 'I honestly don't know. One minute I think he does, and the next…' She noticed his expression and bit her lip.

'I'm gonna go see Joshua. I need to change… and I promised I'd tell him when Alec was stable.' She met his eyes one last time. 'I'm sorry,' she whispered, and left.

'That's okay, Max,' he called quietly after her. 'It's not your fault.'

- - - - - - - - -

Logan stuck his head around the door. It was quiet and shadowy, monitors beeped unobtrusively and an ugly transhuman with a stethoscope around his neck snored harshly, slumped on a chair in an adjoining room. Alec was the only inmate of the hastily improvised infirmary. He was propped up on pillows with his eyes lightly closed, pale and limp with bruised eye-sockets. Logan wondered if he should come back later, but pushed the door open anyway. It creaked softly, but the snoring didn't falter.

Logan wasn't sure what he was doing here. He may have half-convinced himself it was concern for the X5's welfare that had him navigating the labyrinth of corridors to visit him in his convalescence. If pressed, he might admit he was here for a second opinion on the bombshell Max had dropped on him. That was a little closer to the truth.

'Hey,' he murmured.

Alec shifted and squinted at him as though the minimal light startled his eyes.

'Logan?' he croaked. 'Hey, man. How you doing?'

Logan assumed that the inquiry was a reference to his anticipated state of misery after Max had confronted him and couldn't think of any non-poisonous reply. Instead;

'You look terrible,' he said flatly.

Alec attempted a rather lacklustre smirk. 'Could say the same for you – you been up all night worrying about us?'

Logan suppressed a hot swoop of anger. What had he expected? Had he come here to face Alec's mockery? Where were his self-preservation instincts? That 'us', that one short word which united Max and Alec in its meaning, the two of them pressed together into the space of that brief sound… nausea threatened to swamp him.

Alec frowned raising his head a fraction off the pillows. 'Seriously, man, are you okay? You look worse than me.'

Logan flinched. How much salt did Alec intend to rub into the still-raw wound of Max's rejection?

'Yeah,' he agreed, with a bitter laugh. Some unusual light in his blue eyes made Alec swallow any more teasing. He wondered what Logan was doing here – it was no secret that they weren't exactly friends. Hell, for all the noble motives behind the advice he'd given Max, it wasn't the idea of a man who placed great value on Alec's life.

Logan looked down, no longer able to stomach the sight of that pale, weary, handsome, impassive face. He noticed that Alec's forearms were loosely encircled with straps which also took in the metal edges of the bed.

'They got you strapped in?' he asked casually.

Alec looked surprised. He glanced down at his arm, raising it a foot or so off the bed so that it came to the limit of the strap. 'Yeah, sort of. Apparently if I move too much in my sleep I could dislodge a stitch. Ol' Frank doesn't want to do the job again. Not sure how effective this is, but my opinion's not high on anybody's priority list at this point,' he explained wryly.

'I don't see how it stops you moving when it's so loose.'

'Well, yeah. But I drew the line at being actually tied up.' He grinned, but Logan didn't return it. He picked up the end of the excess strap and twisted it between his fingers. Alec eyed him uncertainly.

'So…' Logan cleared his throat. He was determined not to show weakness. After all, he'd probably never hold such a position of power over his rival again.

'So, I spoke to Max…'

'How's she doing?'

Logan glowered. 'Oh, you know. Same as ever.'

Alec blinked, surprised and affronted by Logan's unhelpfulness. 'Where is she now?'

'Joshua's. I think she wanted to wash your blood out of her clothes.'

Alec grinned uneasily. Logan couldn't believe he didn't even intend to _try_ an apology. When he'd been _pretending_ to be with Max he'd been vaguely sheepish about it, but now he seemed resolved to gloat over his victory to Logan's face.

It was as much an angry twitch as conscious thought that made him pull the strap taut, snapping Alec's arm forcefully against the bed edge and securing it there.

Alec tried ineffectively to move it, gaping in surprise. His palm grasped at nothing, raised as far as the tight strap would allow. He was so taken aback that by the time he resorted to moving the other arm, Logan had reached for the corresponding strap and pulled it likewise taut, mostly to protect himself from Alec's retribution.

'Hey!' Alec exclaimed once he'd regained the power of speech. 'That's not – funny.' He tensed his shoulders to struggle against the bonds, then bit down a cry of pain as the movement stretched the injured muscles in his back. 'C'mon, man. Save the practical jokes till I'm better and we're on a level playing field,' he gasped out.

'I think this is the closest we've ever been to a level playing field.' He looked Alec up and down and noticed the bandage low on his side, clean except for a few spots where blood had seeped through the stitches. 'That looks painful.'

Alec followed his glance, distracted. 'Not too bad. Compared to my back,' he admitted absently. He looked back at Logan's face. His expression was unreadable. 'Look, man, what's this about?'

Even for himself, Logan didn't have an answer. Anger had carried him here, and now he had to validate his actions somehow. Hatred and fury roared through him. How could Alec play dumb like this? All he wanted was an apology.

'Max told me,' he grated out. 'She told me about…'

Alec felt a pang of guilt and apprehension. He remembered waking up on a cold floor to Max's lips on his, feeling her arms around him as he threw up on the floor, teasing her and then – kissing her. Oh, damn. But really, it had been Max's fault. Why had she told Logan? To alleviate her conscience? _Thank you, Max…_

Somehow 'she started it' didn't seem like a defence that would be well received. Logan wasn't coming across as… well-balanced as usual. Actually, the most prudent course of action at this point was probably to call for help. But Alec had his pride, too.

He tried to look guilty, but a large part of him resented apologising for that kiss. 'Logan, it was just – I mean, we thought we were gonna _die…_' he offered.

Logan punched him on the jaw. It was a weak punch; the punch of a man whose body was acting without his mind's conviction, a man afraid of the consequences. But it was enough to snap Alec's head sideways and make him tense the muscles in his back, which screamed in protest. Alec closed his eyes tight and bit his lip until it bled.

'God…' he gasped to no-one in particular. Shouldn't Frank be waking up? Were these monitors even working? He cursed the DNA which made his heart rate so amped up it was relatively unresponsive to stimuli. He blinked. The room was swaying. He was supposed to be sleeping off a spectacular level of blood loss. He flexed his fingers in frustration. He breathed out slowly and opened his eyes. Logan was playing with a scalpel. Oh, damn.

'Logan, come on. I know you're upset – I'm not quite sure _why_ – but you don't want to do this. You're not that kind of man.'

'Yeah, 'cause I'm just harmless, right? Ordinary. Safe. _Sensible_. Perhaps you pushed me too far.'

'I didn't do anything to you!' Alec protested, edged with the guilt of knowing that wasn't _quite_ true. That beeping _had_ sped up. Where was Frank? Still snoring? _How?_ God.

'Really? So the fact that Max has given up on our relationship – has nothing to do with you. Is that it, is that your story…?'

Alec's eyes went wide. 'I'm sorry, man… but honestly, I don't know…' A glimmer of hope surfaced in his consciousness – but he banished it. This was not the time for foolish daydreams.

'Stop it! Stop… playing innocent,' Logan pleaded in an anguished whisper. He weighed the little scalpel thoughtfully in one hand. 'I could kill you now,' he added shakily.

Alec tensed. Pain flared up, but he ignored it. 'Yes, that could happen,' he agreed evenly. 'But if you want my opinion – which, obviously, you don't – it'd be an overreaction to one… kiss.' He finished in a bare whisper.

Logan stretched out a trembling, scalpel-wielding arm. Its point was four inches from Alec's skin and Logan's violent trembling made its movement unpredictable. A part of Logan was screaming _what the hell are you doing?_ And other parts were frantically trying to construct an excuse which would still hold when his mind had regained rational control.

'Do you love her?' he asked, voice deceptively steady.

Alec was watching him with his eyes wide. Afraid – he was afraid. Logan had never seen him look like that before. He guessed that a man so recently acquainted with the sensation of being stabbed would have a healthy reluctance to feel it again.

'Do you love her?!'

'I think – yes. Yes!'

'You always did.'

Alec shook his head, not in denial, just as a sort of gesture of desperation. 'God. I don't know, man. What is love?'

'I'm really not in the mood for a philosophical debate with you, Alec.'

Alec raised his restrained hands as far as possible in acknowledgement, with much the same attitude as he'd exhibited spreading his palms before the gunman. 'I can see that,' he conceded.

'Max loves you… So she says. But _three days_ ago she loved me. That doesn't happen; people change, but not like that. What did you say to her?'

'I don't know. I do know that she'll never forgive you – never be with you – if you kill me.'

'I could push this knife into that hole in your back. Undo those straps, they'd think you'd disrupted your stitches in your sleep, as feared. It was a pretty weak preventative measure.'

'You'd have to be pretty confident I wouldn't live to tell tales on you,' Alec hissed. This was surely a nightmare. Logan didn't behave like this. If only he were free to pinch himself. A reckless part of him was curious to see if Logan could really be pushed _that_ far. But mostly, he was following the movements of the knife in horrified anticipation, and repeating _pleasenopleasenopleaseno_ in his head. Somewhere deep in his consciousness Logan's voice was playing on repeat… _'Max loves you… so she says.' _ Was this like before, when she'd lied to push Logan away, or…? Fuck! Concentrate! Knife!

Logan gritted his teeth and steadied his arm with his other hand.

'It would be sad for you, huh? Survive Familiars and most of Seattle's police force, and then…' The blade was closer than ever, but if anything his resolve seemed to be weakening. He choked out a brief, hysterical laugh.

'Come on, Logan,' Alec pressed in a low voice, his eyes fixed warily on the hand holding the blade which was now too close to see. 'Don't do this to yourself. "Eyes only", champion of the oppressed – you're a good man. You don't want to become the guy who murders a friend over a girl.'

Logan didn't move. His lips twisted in anger; how dare Alec patronise him, even now?

'Okay then – don't do it to Max,' Alec tried. 'She doesn't deserve to lose another person in her life – or to lose you. She believes in you – don't disappoint her.'

Logan's eyes hardened.

'Ah, fuck! Don't do it to _me!_'

Logan's face was impassive for a second, then he blinked and smirked. He retracted a hand, and for a second Alec thought it would plunge forward and braced himself, but Logan relaxed his fingers and the scalpel clattered to the floor. Logan stared at it as though startled to have found it in his hand. He scrubbed a hand across his mouth and took a few shaky steps back. 'Damn,' he muttered. He wasn't looking at Alec.

After a minute or two he looked up and met Alec's eyes for a second, gave a tiny nod, then turned numbly and headed for the door.

'Logan?' Alec called softly. 'I'm sorry that she hurt you. But if… you're right, and I'm the reason – I'm not sorry enough to tell her no.'

Logan nodded mutely without turning and walked on. In the doorway Alec called him again.

'And – Logan. If you ever threaten me again, I'll kill you.'

Logan didn't move for a few seconds. Then he was gone.

Alec let his head fall back against the pillows. His arms were still pressed uncomfortably against the metal sides of the bed.

Nonetheless, he was asleep in seconds.

- - - - - - - - -

Alec jolted awake, startled into full alert without really knowing why. Max's face materialised in front of him, and he sighed in relief.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. How come these straps are so tight? You didn't tear the stitches, did you?'

'No, I think it's just a precaution.'

'Should I leave them?'

'No, take them off.'

She obeyed gently, frowning at the faint red marks left on his skin. 'How're you feeling?'

He grimaced at her, but said 'better'.

'Better than what?' she pressed suspiciously.

'Um, last time I checked.'

She snorted. 'Right.' She perched on the side of the bed, her thigh pressed against his through several layers of fabric. Her closeness concentrated his attention. He remembered some of the things Logan had said…

'Listen, Alec… After everything that happened last night; I know it was intense, but I need to know…' she gulped '…whether you meant what you said.'

'Which part?' Alec replied innocently, thinking of standing in a hospital corridor lit in shades of despair, watching blood blossom on her throat and spitting out three words like a war-cry…

She glared at him and he smirked. He loved watching her make herself angry with her own stubbornness. Would that bode well for a relationship? Probably not. Oh well.

'God! You're so annoying.'

'Thank you Max. I try. But there's no need to call me God.'

'Argh!' she shrieked in frustration.

He laughed and coughed. 'Look…' he said eventually. 'I did. I meant it, but if it'll make things easier… I can contradict that in a heartbeat.'

'Don't.'

He met her eyes and was surprised to see them shining with tears.

'It'll never work,' she whispered.

'You don't know until you try.'

'Whatever happened to "look before you leap"?'

'When have I ever said that? Unless I was talking about literally leaping, because that's just obvious, you know…'

'Well then,' she interrupted with a finger on his lips. 'Let's leap.'

She kissed him gently, chastely, on the lips, but something in the trembling of her mouth promised something more.

She looked almost shy, but also triumphant. She stretched herself out on the bed beside him, carefully not putting any weight on him which would crush his wound against the bed.

'Alec?'

'Yeah?'

'Why did you say, in the van, that you didn't…'

'Van?'

'There was a van.'

'When?'

'How did you _think_ we got back here?'

He looked down at her, frowning introspectively. 'I think… probably… magic?' he tried eventually.

She snorted. 'Guess again, Cinderella.'

'Pumpkin?'

'No.'

'Any vegetable?'

'Alec – you don't remember talking to me in the van?'

'Nope…'

'Do you remember getting back here?'

'Um… not really. But I remember Frank taking the knife out.' He winced at the memory.

'That's a pretty poor choice of selected memory,' she commented. She'd carry the sight of the agony in his eyes in that moment with her to the grave.

'Why, was the van a particularly good bit?'

'Not… actually. No.' Hah. _"Peddling sentiment". "I could contradict that in a heartbeat". Not so fast, my love…_

'Which was the best bit? Hope I'm not missing any real gems.'

She closed her eyes and relaxed her head against the pillow to whisper in his ear. 'This is the best bit.'

He smiled sleepily. 'Wouldn't miss it for the world.'

- - - - - - - - -

_An update? So soon? Surely not! ;) Hope you enjoyed it. The final chapter/ epilogue will be up soon, because it's mostly written. To the reviewer who said I should continue - sorry, but I think it'd just become rambling convoluted nonsense if I extended it a lot further! To everyone else who reviewed; thank you so, so much. You guys are as much responsible for this story's existence as I am, I literally couldn't have done it without you and I'm so humbled by your patience and kindness! Thanks, as always, for reading, and I'll see you soon for the ending! _


	10. Chapter 10

**Alive till Tomorrow**

**(10)**

**Epilogue**

Alec clattered up the stairs into the command centre. He was already late, but then, they probably weren't expecting him to be on time. He flexed his stiff shoulders as he glanced around for the jacket he'd discarded while working here several hours earlier.

The wound on his back still made some movements painful, but he was assured that it was healing as fast as could be expected. While his stitches were being removed after what seemed an age he'd complained to the medic Greg that he was _supposedly_ designed to heal fast, and had been told tersely that that may be the case, but he _wasn't_ designed to be stabbed in the back. That, Alec supposed, was probably true, although he wouldn't put anything past Manticore.

He picked up the jacket and turned to leave. He stopped in surprise when he noticed Logan sitting hunched over a computer in the corner, his eyes averted as though hoping Alec would leave without seeing him.

Alec stood up a bit straighter. The sight of the hacker made his skin crawl, but he wasn't going to let it affect him.

'Hey,' he greeted him shortly.

Logan turned around, overdoing the false surprise. 'Alec! Hey… didn't expect to see you here this late.'

'Left my jacket.' He lifted it casually with one hand to demonstrate.

'Oh.' A pause. 'How's your back?'

He felt an angry pang between his shoulder blades, but dismissed it as psychological.

'Greg took my stitches out yesterday.'

'That's great.' Another pause. 'How come not Frank?'

'Oh…' Alec smirked wearily. 'Guess you didn't hear. Turns out Frank was thrown off the advanced medical course back at Manticore. Knew what he was doing, poor bastard – but some nervous flaw gives him panic attacks when he has to deal with wounds. After he pulled that knife out my back, he drank himself into a stupor on most of a crate of Scotch.'

Logan raised his eyebrows and laughed half-heartedly.

'You know - Frank was dead to the world for good six hours. If I'd pulled a stitch, chances are he wouldn't have woken up. You might have accidentally saved my life.'

Logan blinked, then nodded gratefully.

Neither moved for a moment.

'You didn't tell her?'

Alec shook his head.

'She doesn't like it when people keep secrets.'

Alec frowned in irritation. 'What good would it do if I told her? She'd be upset, you'd be miserable. Wouldn't make me feel any better. Truth's not an absolute, Logan. Who was it – Keats? – "Beauty is truth, truth beauty…"'

'"That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know."'

'Right. Well, bullshit. If everyone ends up hurt by telling the truth, it's not worth it.'

'And I always thought you were just a compulsive liar.'

'What can I say? Layers, like an onion. Not just a pretty face.'

'And – Keats?'

'To seduce a target's wife.'

'That true?'

'Maybe. Who cares?'

Logan snorted.

'I couldn't understand why Max told you she kissed me in that hospital. On the face of it, it looks like she was just being cruel to you, but then… her conscience was always less… flexible than mine.'

'She didn't. You did. All she told me was that she wasn't in love with me any more,' Logan confessed. His voice cracked at the end. The wound was still raw; but he was ashamed of his behaviour, and he had to concede that he probably didn't deserve her any more.

Alec raised an eyebrow. 'She doesn't make it easy,' he murmured, more to himself than to Logan.

'But she's worth it,' Logan whispered. He was looking at the floor.

For a long moment both men were silent, unmoving and avoiding one another's gaze. There was a hint of reconciliation in the air, but, Alec felt, it was too soon for that. Both of them were still feeling the aches of the previous week's events.

'I gotta go. Joshua's making his world-famous macaroni and cheese with little hotdogs.'

Logan waved vaguely and turned back to his computer. The he turned back.

'Alec?' He stopped in the doorway. 'Thanks.'

Alec nodded an acknowledgement. He lingered in the doorway. He didn't really want to forgive so easily. Logan had scared the hell out of him when he'd been vulnerable and suffering. He wouldn't tell Max, but he wasn't really prepared to let it slide, either.

'Logan…' he said quietly. There was a pause while he struggled with his impulse for retribution. Eventually, after opening his mouth and closing it again a few times, he murmured, 'Stay away from me.'

He turned and walked away. His back was throbbing, but he was warmed by the knowledge that if she knew, Max would be proud of him.

- - - - - - - - - -

Alec pushed the door open without bothering to knock. Joshua was stirring something on the stove, chatting animatedly to Max, who was sitting on an upturned wooden crate at the makeshift table, grinning the slightly panicked grin of a listener who has entirely lost the thread of the story.

Joshua paused in his enthusiastic anecdote when Alec entered, to exclaim 'Alec!' and march across the room to hug him, leaving a trail of sauce dripping off the spoon he carried.

'You're late,' Max observed, without getting up.

'I know,' he agreed. 'I'm thoroughly despicable.' He took her gently by the shoulders and drew her to her feet, kissing her lightly on the forehead. He produced a rather sad-looking bunch of garish orange roses from behind his back. She grinned and buried her face in them, absurdly pleased.

'Not entirely despicable,' she conceded generously.

Alec left her clattering through Joshua's mismatched and chipped collection of crockery, searching for something to stand the flowers in, and limped over to the stove. 'That smells amazing.' It smelled bland, but he'd eaten nothing all day. He reached out a hand to sample the sauce and Joshua rapped him gently with the spoon.

'Wait! It's a surprise.'

'Macaroni surprise? My favourite.'

'With little hotdogs,' Joshua amended earnestly.

Max had found a mug with a frog on it and was attempting to make the flowers fall in an even yet natural fan. The lurid green design clashed jarringly with the questionable colour of the roses. Eventually she sat back and admired her work.

Alec crept up behind her to whisper in her ear. 'Keep your day job.'

She yelped in surprise, then leaned back easily against his chest.

'Manticore neglected flower arranging in my education.'

'Shame… maybe you could go to finishing school. Learn some dancing and cookery and manners while you're there.'

'I can dance! And Joshua can cook, and there's nothing… wrong… with my… manners… what?' He was laughing. She stepped on his foot, but without much conviction. 'You're in no position to comment on my manners,' she muttered primly.

He tickled her ribs and she writhed, squealing in protest, then laid her head on his shoulder to look at him upside down.

'Where'd you get roses from?'

'Magician never tells his secrets, Maxie.'

'Which means, you snatched them from some poor old lady's garden.'

'Max! I'm offended.'

'Which means I'm right.'

'The colour kinda suggests they grew here in TC… must be the result of some chemical leak.'

Max frowned. 'It's not a…bad colour.'

'Don't think it's natural.'

'Well, neither are we.' She turned around within the circle of his arms and met his eyes. 'I think they're beautiful.' She kissed him lingeringly, her hands in his hair. It should have been strange, adapting to such intimacy with someone who'd been part of her life in a platonic capacity for a year. But it came so naturally – she fit so neatly in his arms.

She pulled away and opened her eyes. 'You should sit down. How's your back?'

He rolled his eyes but obeyed, letting her guide him to Joshua's threadbare couch. 'It's okay.'

She pulled a face at him. After a moment's consideration, she slipped around the back of the couch and gathered his shirt in her hands, pushing it up to his shoulders to reveal the ugly two-inch scar. It was still vivid in colour but had shrunk to a narrow line. The red pin-prick marks each side of it marked where the stitches had come out. But the surrounding skin looked healthy. She twisted her lips, half satisfied, then pulled his shirt off over his head and draped it over the back of the couch.

'Max!' he whined indignantly. 'If you wanted to take my shirt off, all you had to do was…'

'Why should I have to ask?' she demanded playfully, circling round in front of him. She pushed him back against the couch with one hand flat on his chest and knelt in front of him to inspect the other wounds. The spot where she'd performed amateur surgery on his shoulder had no mark but a thin pink line. The bullet wound on his side was still slightly inflamed but had closed neatly. Soon there wouldn't be a mark on him to testify to their recent misadventures.

'Satisfied?' he asked impatiently.

'Not too bad.'

'_Not too bad_,' he imitated her incredulously.

She nodded, smiling, and handed him back his shirt. She caught his eye as his head emerged through the collar and winked conspiratorially. 'Not bad at all.'

They both looked up in dismay at the sound of Joshua beating the side of his saucepan with the spoon, spattering yet more sauce over the makeshift kitchen and himself.

'Ready,' he announced proudly.

Max stood and pulled Alec to his feet. They perched on wooden boxes and waited meekly to be fed. Joshua served the results of his culinary labours and joined them.

Nobody needed to compliment Joshua on his cooking; the ravenous way they set into it was affirmation enough. They ate for several minutes in companionable silence. After a while, Max paused with her fork hovering in mid-air.

'You know, I saw Logan today.'

Alec didn't blink. 'Yeah, me too. He seems okay, all things considered.'

Max chewed her lip. 'Yeah, I guess. He took it pretty badly to start with… I hope he gets used to the idea of… us. I don't want to lose him.'

'He can be a pretty useful guy to have around,' Alec conceded ambiguously.

Max frowned faintly at the echoes of callousness in the comment. 'He still means something to me,' she admitted. 'He always will. And in any case, I feel responsible.'

Joshua made a soft soothing sound and Alec glanced at her sharply.

'I _am_ responsible,' she amended.

'That's life,' Alec said shortly.

Joshua nodded earnest agreement. 'Some people are lucky, some not,' he rumbled cryptically.

Max twisted her lips bitterly and squeezed Alec's hand. 'Yeah – some people are born free and some get stabbed in the back.'

Alec shook his head. 'We're the lucky ones, Max.'

She turned incredulous eyes on him. Her expression asked him if he'd forgotten _everything_ that happened the previous week.

'Well – we're alive. Gem and her baby got their tryptophan – we got what we went for. And-.'

'We got a family,' Joshua put in. 'Max, Alec, Joshua, Mole, Gem, Dalton… everybody else.'

Max was touched by their sentimentality, but unconvinced by their optimism.

'Right up to the day they decide to blow us to bits.' The anger in her voice was replaced with world-weary sadness. 'We might never be free, really free. And we've suffered so much.' She was looking at Alec, who was wincing surreptitiously as he shifted closer to her.

'I'll be alright, Max. _We'll_ be alright.'

She leaned her head against his shoulder. 'You always say that,' she commented sadly. Her voice cracked with affection and sadness.

'Well, it's true. We will be – maybe not until we reach this utopia you imagine where we're accepted and nobody wants to kill anyone else.'

She smiled wistfully.

'But, you know,' he concluded softly. 'Until tomorrow.'

- - - - - - - - - -

_Voila, c'est fini! ;) Thank you so much for reading, and for all your reviews - you guys are amazing; I've had some really interesting, thoughtful comments, a lot of which offer a perspective I hadn't even thought of. And I also love getting the ones which just confirm that you're enjoying the story, because hell -That's why I'm writing it! I hope you liked the ending._

_Thanks again,_

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